[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohYMmHE0zBY]
8) “Serenity In Murder” – Easily my favorite song from Divine Intervention, and again, one I don’t understand not being a live set staple. I get it… Slayer’s catalog is massive, and they’ve made a big push in the last decade to cater as much to older stuff as to whatever their current touring release is. But still–this song has the best of what Slayer could do at the time, and of what they still do now. The opening is so frantic; I still have a hard time nodding my head to it. But when that verse kicks in, that groove is so heavy and so catchy, there’s just no way to ignore it. After getting exposed to Slayer when I was 15, I found Divine Intervention quickly and fell totally in love. It’s my favorite Slayer record, and “Serenity In Murder” is the perfect mix of thrash and groove.
9) “Born of Fire”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J400icNOQ84]
Finding a lull in Seasons In The Abyss is tough. In spite of its popularity, I’d argue the title track is probably the record’s weakest, but I know I’m in an extreme minority there, so I’m not gonna fight anybody over it. “Born of Fire” is the album’s scorching penultimate number, and it’s overlooked. Let’s face it, on an album with “War Ensemble,” “Dead Skin Mask,” “Blood Red,” and “Spirit In Black,” it’s easy for less-memorable songs to slip through the cracks. But “Born of Fire” boasts some of the most intense, frantic riffing from this collection, and it’s one the band seems to really enjoy. I don’t know when it was last in gig rotation, but the version from Decade of Aggression is still one of my favorite Slayer live renditions. Ruthless and concise.
10) “Spill The Blood”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWvqjLxd14M]
One of Slayer’s earlier forays into the aesthetic choices that would later be more prevalent on Diabolus In Musica and God Hates Us All, “Spill The Blood” shares that spooky chord progression songs with songs like “Desire” and “Deviant,” forgoing brutality for atmosphere. On the whole, South of Heaven is probably my least favorite Slayer album, but I’ve always dug this one as a closer. And the title track. And “Mandatory Suicide.” Okay, South of Heaven’s got its badass moments.
11) “Haunting The Chapel”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCXjinjJv9w]
The unsung title track of the EP that gave us fan favorites “Chemical Warfare” and “Captor of Sin” is one of Slayer’s most slept-on songs. The track’s main riff begins a lot like “Aggressive Perfector,” but then it dips into sonic territory shared with a lot of the tracks on Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All. Like a lot of Slayer fans around my age, I’m not a big fan of pre-Reign In Blood Slayer. Apart from “The Antichrist” and “Die By The Sword,” they were still finding their sound, exploring aspects of thrash that other bands were just doing better. But “Haunting The Chapel” is one of the best examples of Slayer really making that old formula work for them. It gets overshadowed (and rightfully so, I think) by “Captor of Sin” and “Chemical Warfare” because those songs had more in common with Hell Awaits and Reign In Blood than anything from Show No Mercy. It’s still got that rowdy trash feel that’s not necessarily as overtly sinister as their later stuff, and there’s something satisfying about looking back on it and thinking about how far Slayer have come since then.
One of my favorite things about combing through the old cuts of bands with long histories is finding shit I never knew I’d skipped over. To this day, after being a Slayer fan over half my life, I can still go back and find cool stuff that I never gave enough attention to, and in preparation for a new release, especially one as long-awaited as Repentless, that’s pretty cool. Reviewing the old albums while writing this installment of Criminally Slept-On, I noticed some South of Heaven tracks sounded better now than they ever have before. I’ll be the first to say this list could’ve been a lot longer, but these are the ones that made my cut. Do u even Slayer, bro? What songs did I miss? Repentless hits stores on September 11th through Nuclear Blast.
