Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
By the time of their second album Slayer were already one of the leaders of the ‘bay area’ thrash scene and a protected band for their record label Metal Blade, as their debut album Show No Mercy had become the label’s biggest seller to date. Slayer of course along with bands like Dark Angel absolutely epitomized the heavier end of the thrash spectrum, as raw aggression with such brute force had never been heard before to this level and this factor alone made these early Slayer albums perfect frameworks for like-minded bands to follow. In between Show No Mercy and Hell Awaits the band released a couple of EP’s of note of which the first the delightful sounding Haunting the Chapel should be of note to any thrash enthusiast out there and this was followed by the Live Undead set also recommended. Hell Awaits gives us another splattering of the Slayer recipe with its thunderous sound, aggressive image and those ever so perfect lyrics along with all the satanic paraphernalia connected to the band. This Slayer approach was not only furthering the boundaries of thrash metal, but also helping to further sow the seeds of extreme metal as well. The album cover is a stark improvement over the NWOBHM look of Show No Mercy and starts the trend of very Slayer album covers that would become another Slayer trademark over the ensuing years. On Hell Awaits the band decided to give us even more of their severe extremities, as now they were not only sounding angrier, but the lyrical conent of their music was getting even sicker as well. Hell Awaits also demonstrates a split trend amongst thrash bands at this time, as a number of them were still content with a standard aggressive sound, but a number of its better bands like Slayer and most notably Metallica, were constantly prepared to push the creative boundaries of the genre, with both progressive or technical elements and in the case of Slayer this progression can be noted on Hell Awaits over it’s predecessor Show No Mercy, in fact this progressive element had already shown its face on the Haunting the Chapel EP. At this time Slayer were pretty much into listening to Mercyful Fate (not a big fan of them btw) but based on this taste Slayer were going in for longer songs on Hell Awaits with the shorter tracks being almost 4 mins in length and the longer tracks over 6 mins, giving the album and average listening time of 5 minutes per song. The tracks on Hell Awaits display notable varying tempos, band nuances and a level of distortion ahead of the grunge boom later in the decade. The album starts with the title track “Hell Awaits” a dissonant 6 minute classic that typifies the progressive elements of the album with a dose of unbridled speed, with Tom Arayas’s vocals here flowing at supersonic speed and near the song’s beginning some Venom type sound effects are chucked in for good measure. The album contains essential classics almost song after song and songs like “At Dawn They Sleep” demands not just to be listened to, but also having a lyrics sheet to go with it as well, in fact much of the album’s songs fall into this category and need a lyric sheet to do them justice. Other cuts like “Praise of Death” pretty much sums up the dissonant approach of the band towards some of these songs and the ideally named “Crypts of Terror” evoke sensations of both horror and gore, despite displaying some Venom looking lyrics. Some of the real gems on Hell Awaits are in the form of its more straightforward thrashers like the almost catchy “Kill Again” with its unforgettable 'no apparent motive, just kill and kill again' line and the band then certainly reached their lyrical apex with the sicko “Necrophiliac” which contained great lines like 'I feel the urge, a growing need, to **** this sinful corpse' and this whole frenzied experience is finished off with my favourite song title here the “Hardening of the Arteries” a final blitzer for the listener. Hell Awaits is a unique combination of a album that strives to be both genuinely aggressive and pretty sick sounding at the same time, but it does this with a level of progression to really test the mettle of its four components, where the dual guitar team of Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King are pretty top-notch throughout. Based on my experiences with Slayer, this album might well be their most progressive and in hindsight it’s now clearly seen as one of the band’s hidden treasures, especially for those like myself, that never gave it the chance it truly deserved when I was really getting into the Slayer discography for the first time.

Tom Araya- Bass/Vocals
Kerry King- Guitar
Jeff Hanneman- Guitar
Dave Lombardo- Drums

Production- Brian Slagel

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