Review by Rexorcist for Slayer - South of Heaven (1988)

Having just come off the backs of Seasons in the Abyss and Reign in Blood, I came to realize something: Seasons isn't just a less heavy album than Reign in Blood, but compared to Reign in Blood it feels so light!  It's like sleeping in wool and then going back to a different blanket: you're just not as satisfied.  Slayer themselves remained fast and heavy, but how could they lower the quality of their best skill over the course of two albums!?  The best way to compare albums from the same genre is to first listen to several albums by one band at the same time and then compare those to each other first, and compare them to another band's catalog later.  I remember having heard the first five Slayer albums in a single marathon, although I forget exactly which year I did that.  But I had one strong opinion: Reign in Blood might've been the heaviest, but it was a bit monotonous.  In fact, it reminded me of the Ramones debut for its length, sameyness and energy.  This was better than the Ramones debut, but a contender for the greatest thrash metal album of all time?  I look at things from VARIOUS angles, especially albums.

The way I see it, Reign in Blood and Seasons both make this mistake.  And both are likely the most beloved of the five classic Slayer albums because they're arguably the fastest and most guitar-driven.  But if Metallica ever proved anything, it's that you should NEVER be afraid of a change of pace, especially since there was no fucking way Slayer could recreate RiB, and the last thing they wanted was to go back to their speed metal days which had died out with the rest of whatever remnants of a scene there was.  So what do we get?  A slower tempo that's just as heavy as it needs to be.  It might not be Reign in Blood heavy, but albums that focus on that before anything tend to ignore simple things like WRITING and CREATIVITY (looking at you, Pleasure to Kill).  South of Heaven was all about changing that pace, and as a result it's not as fast throughout, and some would say that it's not as heavy.  However, the album still has more power than Seasons.

I don't know about you, but if the band thought they could get away with the same song over and over again not just for one album but more, I would've lost respect for them.  Instead, the took the approach I would've taken: take some time to fixate on melody.  There's a reason Slayer's not selling the way Metallica is: Metallica knows melody like they were born and raised by it.  And despite the slower tempo of the title track, there's a lot of punk attitude that we NEED in an early Slayer album, and fans of the old stuff still get what they want really early as the next track, "Silent Scream," is rooted deeply in that sound, but still there's a focus on rhythm.  And the lyrics have to take over for the focus, and lemme tell you, this is fucking dark.  Honestly, I don't know how they're comfortable singing this.  At least they aren't Devourment.  But they create the apocalyptic / ritualistic vibe perfectly with lyrics alone.  Just from a critical viewpoint, this has to be one of their top five songs!  And it's almost as heavy as anything from RiB.  And speaking of the apocalyptic vibe, "Live Undead" handles that perfectly.  The careful vibe may be slow for Slayer songs, and that's what makes it feel so apocalyptic.  But the music is still brutal in every way imaginable, and it turns into a real thrash song with incredible speed in the second half, and the transition feels completely natural.  "Behind the Crooked Cross" shows off the early groove sound that Slayer were going to take part in later on albums like God Hates Us All, but the thrash brutality is still perfectly healthy, hell even strong enough to tear a gorilla's arm off.  "Mandatory Suicide" brings back that crossover attitude, but takes time to be catchy and jam for a while.  The riffs at the end of the song sound like wailing monsters.

"Ghosts of War" goes right back to the classic thrashing, and it's probably the fastest song on the album.  And it's so heavy that it sounds like it belongs on RiB, so as opposed to sounding like they're copying themselves, it's a piece of nostalgia.  Even when the song slows down in the second half, it's still as brutal as ever.  Afterwards is "Read Between the Lines" in which a careful balance between groove and thrash melodies aid Araya as he almost raps about his problems with preachy evangelists.  I'm just gonna say it, I might be Christian, but I COMPLETELY understand why these guys are fed up with organized religion.  And afterwards, we get another vicious and noisy work of thrash bombast: "Cleanse the Soul."  It was at this point that I decided that "Ghosts of War" wasn't the heaviest song, it was "Cleanse the Soul," going at a whopping 200 bpm, and being the noisiest song so far.  This was the true recreation of Reign in Blood without looking like they ran out of ideas.  Next came "Dissident Aggressor," which more more about slow-building tension, but still took instrumental power and force into account.  Despite the slow build, it's only two-and-a-half minutes, and it uses every second wisely with brute force still being present.  Finally, we get "Spill the Blood," which isn't exactly the most proper song title to use in an episode of Sesame Street, right?  This might be sluggish for them, but the way they handle the vicious atmosphere is flawless, and the focus on making an actual tune brings out a side of Slayer that hasn't quite been seen before, but feels in place for this album because there were hints of all of these albums strengths present in preceding songs on this album.  But at the same time, I'm left wishing for more songs like this, and I didn't get a lot of songs like this all the way up to God Hates Us All.

Well, I'm fully convinced that from a creative standpopint, this is the best Slayer album.  It's perfectly consistent while still being a thrash album first and foremost, boasting some strong groove and crossover elements, taking time to build a seriously apocalyptic mood through tempo and lyrics, and being filled to the brim with some of their best riffs.  Reign in Blood is a little short and a bit too monotonous, and Seasons in the Abyss just isn't even heavy enough for me when compared to RiB, but South of Heaven carries songs perfectly fit for RiB and has a lot of its own identity at the same time.  This is exactly what a thrash album needs to be, and I put this in the same league as Master of Puppets.  ANd I feel like not only does this album fit my long-standing standards for perfection, but also taught me something about thrash.