Howard the Duck

they are certainly better written, and the flow is better

on most of the songs on RIB, i can hardly tell which one's which, besides the aforementioned Jesus Saves and Angel of Death and the final slow one (Raining Blood?)

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

Janszoon

Dude, Surf Nicaragua only has four songs on it and the longest one of them is a cover. That means that means about a third of the album's running time was written by Black Sabbath.

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

Howard the Duck

and RIB is only slightly over half an hour

yes i hate their War Pigs but Surf Nicaragua (song) beats almost all the songs on RIB

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

Janszoon

What's your point? Mine was that it's pretty hard to talk about album flow when you're referring a four song EP and pretty hard to talk about songwriting when a big percentage of the music consists of non-original material.

"Surf Nicaragua" is a good song but is not even in the same league as the tracks on Reign in Blood. That said, I think looking at Reign in Blood as simply a collection of songs is a mistake. It's a quintessential album album—a single, unified listening experience—and is best appreciated when consumed whole.

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

Howard the Duck

my mistake, actually, i should have specified "flow" for Dimension Hattross, even if some solos were speeded up

Surf Nicaragua has better quality in its four songs

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

Janszoon

It's been a while since I've listened to that album but my recollection is that I was extremely underwhelmed by it. But imo it's pretty hard to beat the flow of Reign in Blood. The songs lead into each other incredibly well, just listen to the "Piece By Piece"/"Necrophobic"/"Altar of Sacrifice"/"Jesus Saves" flow for example. Or consider their decision to begin side two with the slow, menacing intro of "Criminally Insane". Most importantly, listen to how the entire pummeling experience of the bulk of the album builds it's way up to that one massive drum hit near the end of "Postmortem", a pause, a final blast of fury, and then the wide open expanse of "Rain in Blood".

As we discussed earlier, one of those songs is a cover that you don't even like, so that leaves three songs to compare to all ten tracks of Reign in Blood. Those three songs are good, albeit not very different from the music put out by other second-tier thrash bands of that time, but Reign in Blood, on the other hand, sounds pretty unique and pretty innovative compared to it's peers. The fact that it's actually two years older than Surf Nicaragua makes this contrast all the more stark.

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

RMR

For speedy music, I'll take Bad Religion any day over Slayer. Although punk and not at all metal, Bad Religion plays faster than Slayer with the same song lengths as those on "Reign In Blood," but Greg Graffin's vocals can keep pace with the music, where Tom Araya's just can't.

First part of Bad Religion's debut "Suffer"

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RMR
My music reivew site: RMR Music Reviews