Reign In Blood - a quarter of a century old... (A retrospective, if you will, over that and other metal records from the same year: 1986) Ten dazzling songs in less than half an hour, released on October the 7th. What’s amazing is of course the production in combination with great songwriting and developing musical abilities. A leap forward for sure. Production credits go to Rick Rubin and Slayer, with engineering by Andy Wallace. On the inner sleeve it only says recorded in L.A. After some deep research though I found out that it was in fact recorded at a place called Hit City West. The fantastic cover artwork was done by Larry W. Carroll, who also did the covers for South Of Heaven, Seasons In The Abyss and Christ Illusion.Visit his website if you want a glimpse of his more recent stuff. Though, be forewarned ye, he has since droped the W in his name. Metallica put out Master Of Puppets earlier in the year, also a progression, but more in songwriting and musical motivation, it can’t match the sheer impact of Reign ...nevertheless one of the greatest metal records that year. A more crude but still very effective effort is Pleasure To Kill by Kreator. Fast and loose, released on the german Noise label. Wich leads us to a mega-favorite of mine, released on the same label, Celtic Frost’s mighty magnum opus To Mega Therion. Which incidentally is greek and means the great beast. Unholy smoke, this is what dreams are made of. You’ve got the aggressiveness, the avantgarde thing going on, plus strange lyrics and dramatic overtones. Pure bliss. On Noise again we have Voïvod’s brilliantly raw Rrröööaaarrr!. Bought it when it came out, just like Reign, so there’s quite a bit of nostalgia going on here. I even namned my bike at the time Voïvod II. The bike is long gone, but the record still stands around in the crate, it doesn’t get spun around that often though, maybe due to poor production among other things. If memory serves (fuck facts!) Megadeth also released Peace sells.. this year. The only group out of the so called big four that didn’t release an album was Anthrax (well they released a mini lp with mostly old material and a cover or two, but hey...). 1986 also gave us Game Over from Nuclear Assault, a thrash classic, nothing groundbreaking, but good solid, well-played thrash metal [fuckin' underrated imho/Ed.]. Back to Germany, on a stranger note we have Obsessed By Cruelty from Sodom, a downright bizarre creation, from it’s hideous front cover, via the outrageous lyrics to the strangely produced and grotesquely arranged music. Let’s move to Sweden: Candlemass put out their brilliant first record this year, the cheekily titled Epicus Doomicus Metallicus. A majestic debut, for once the merchandise description suits the product, it really is Epic Doom Metal. This cult classic is not the only hard rocking output from Sweden that year. We have, of course, the album that put Sweden on the metal map, The final Coundown by Europe. No, let’s get serious, I only included this to show what was also going on in the hard rock sphere this period. This brand of pompous hair metal was very popular at the time.
On to something heavier indeed, Saint Vitus released Born Too Late, featuring new singer Scott “Wino” Weinrich. Accept showed good form with Russian Roulette. Motörhead kinda re-invented themselves with Orgasmatron, nowadays a highly classic album. Must give shout-out’s to some other awsome records from this year; Dark Angel: Darkness Descends, Exorcist: Nightmare Theatre, Piledriver: Stay Ugly... [more on those gems here/Ed.] So, in conclusion, 1986 was a really good year for the heavier metal I think you’ll agree. In the obituaries for this year we have Cliff Burton, who died in Sweden on his way to the next gig, bloody shame [Hesher <--must-see./Ed.], and Phil Lynott, another great musician gone before his time. This was also the year that Olof Palme, swedish social democratic prime minister at the time, was shot to death on a Stockholm street after a cinema visit. R.I.P. guys, hope you didn’t have to stay in limbo too long. Speaking of wich... Still to come, hold onto yer bullet belts lads and lassies, an “anlysis” of the lyrics for Raining Blood! So what’s the song about? After discussing the matter one night at a local thrash/death gig (or was it a death/thrash gig?) I realised it is in place to get a wee bit intellectual and have a serious look at the lyrics: Trapped in purgatory (...Someone’s in limbo) This is my interpretation, and as a wise man once said, I am allowed to be wrong. Write your suggestions on the back of a Bon Jovi record and send it to someone who deserves it. Yours sin-cerely, Vinny Black |