Album dossier / 1986

Reign in Blood

Slayer · Thrash Metal

Recorded in summer 1986 at the small, storefront Hit City West studio in Hollywood with producer Rick Rubin and engineer Andy Wallace, Reign in Blood was Slayer's first album for Rubin's Def Jam, and he stripped the band's sound down to the bone -- removing nearly all reverb -- after concluding that the studio-standard 'right way' to record drums (Led Zeppelin-style) simply didn't suit a band this extreme. Drummer Dave Lombardo, who said he was 'so well-rehearsed' the whole kit was tracked in three or four days, recalled Rubin's only note being 'let's push a little more... get angry,' and producer and band together decided to speed the whole record up until it clocked in at a startling 28 minutes 58 seconds -- Tom Araya recalled Rubin's sole defense being 'it's 10 songs, verses, leads and choruses, that's what constitutes an album.' Guitarist Jeff Hanneman wrote opener 'Angel of Death' after reading books on Nazi physician Josef Mengele that his war-veteran father had given him; distributor Columbia's Jewish president Walter Yetnikoff refused to release the album over the song, so Rubin (himself Jewish) pulled it and placed it with Geffen instead. Tom Araya's opening scream took only two takes, and around the same sessions Kerry King recorded a paid guest solo on the Beastie Boys' 'No Sleep Till Brooklyn.'