Slayer Album: “Live: Decade of Aggression [PA]”

Description :

DISC 1 was recorded live at Lakeland Coliseum, Lakeland, Florida on July 13, 1991. DISC 2 was recorded live at Wembley Arena, London on October 14, 1990, and at Orange Pavilion, San Bernadino, California, March 8, 1991. <p>Recording information: 1990 - 1991. <p>From the first note of this two-disc live set, you know you're in for one hell of a ride (pun intended). From the classic metal of "Die by the Sword" to the demonic horror-movie music of "Dead Skin Mask," and the all-out stampede that is "Angel of Death," Slayer exposes its hungry fans to a huge helping of the best from its first 10 years. The band members' maturation as musicians to their current status as leaders of the flourishing heavy metal world is well represented here, with tracks hailing from the early SHOW NO MERCY to their most recent effort at the time of this release, SEASONS IN THE ABYSS. Slayer's raw, grinding, fiercely controlled guitar work, supported by speedy, thundering drums, is the prototype for many newer bands. It's hard to imagine a heavy metal world without Slayer, a fact that this disc, screaming crowd included, makes plain.

Slayer is the most evil band walking this earth. All who came after are pretenders walking their footsteps. These guys were and are true originals. I love live albums and since most serious metal bands don't bother with "greatest hits" packages this is the best album to get to hear the greatest songs of the original Satanic heavy metal band (Sabbath was never actually Satanic).

It's Slayer, it's live, it's Slayer live. Nobody can mistake the sound and experience of this for anything else. There simply is no show like a Slayer concert. The fastest and heaviest of thrash metal's revered "Big Four " (the others are [...] and [...] these guys take no prisoners and actively seek to offend and even terrify all but the hardest core of rock fans. Unsatisfied with typical musical scales, dueling lead guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman created their own and in doing so made their shredding solos so chaotic and unpredictable that they turned off a good deal of metal fans who appreciate the genre largely for the technical proficiency of the musicians. Add some wild squealing Floyd Rose whammy bar action, Dave Lombardo's unrelenting double-bass drum assault, and Tom Araya's incomprehensively fast simultaneous barking vocals and bass guitar and you've got pure sonic anarchy.

Single disc live albums? For wusses. To capture the epic nature of a truly great live performance, you need at least an hour and a half of unrelenting music. "Decade of Aggression" gives you that and more. Most bands put out live albums, but it's a lie. They add extra vocals, guitars, and whatnot to the mix after the fact to cover up their perceived inadequacies. None of that here, though you wouldn't know it without reading the liner notes; this album sounds fantastic.... like Slayer live.

Slayer's lyrics are as pitch black as they come; almost to the point where they come full circle and become silly at times. Not any sillier than the films they often reference, but silly enough that any non-idiot music fan wouldn't take them literally. Anthems of damnation and Armageddon ("Hell Awaits", ) and anti-government rebellion told through grisly tales of war ("War Ensemble", "Mandatory Suicide") are the norm and both real life and supernatural horrors are explored in full. My favorite tracks are "Dead Skin Mask" -about Ed Gein, who inspired the film [...] the epic "Seasons in the Abyss", "South of Heaven", "Blood Red" and, of course, the two unforgettable songs every metal fan knows by heart: "Raining Blood" and "Angel of Death" from their penultimate thrash album [...]

Whether mocking Christianity ("Jesus Saves") or depicting the tortures of a Nazi concentration camp (the previously mentioned "Angel of Death"), you are almost guaranteed to be amazed by this band's capacity for darkness. Even the name their fans go by, "Slaytanists", is offensive. All of these things makes Slayer a must-hear band for anybody who can call themselves a metal and/or horror fan. [...]