Reign in Blood is the Best Metal Album EVER!

Black Sabbath were crap and Judas Priest were hit and miss.

the 90s just wasn't the decade for metal.

Hmmmm.....REIGN IN BLOOD the best ever? Let's run through some other contenders first, shall we?

(1) PARANOID by Black Sabbath - Probably my first vote (or side one, at least). How could you argue against "War Pigs," "Iron Man" and "Paranoid" being the holy METAL triumverate? Still, I suppose the trippy jazzy-odyssey "Planet Caravan" negates the album's status as entierely, wholly metal.

(2) NO SLEEP `TILL HAMMERSMITH by Motorhead - Ah, now this is more like it. Faster, harder, sloppier than all their studio albums, and unceasingly brutal. Vintage line-up with Philthy Animal Taylor and Fast Eddie Clarke. An exceptionally tough album to beat. Too Punky for orthodox metal? Do live albums count?

(3) MASTER OF PUPPETS by Metallica - Despite their current status as bassistless Armani-clotheshorses, once upon a time this album was really the bee's knees for any and every discerning member of the Metal cogniscenti. If you don't hold later crimes against them, this album still makes quite an argument for itself.

(4) BACK IN BLACK by AC/DC - Irrefutably a classic by every standard, but throw the word "Metal" at the band and they'll invariably balk, offering terms like "boogie" at you instead. A ferocious album, but not singularly Metal enough, I wager.

(5) NUMBER OF THE BEAST by Iron Maiden - It's all here: riffs, hair, high-piped warbling and Satan. Not enough power-chords you say? Pah! NWOBHM at it's best I reckon. But best ever?

(6) BRITISH STEEL by Judas Priest - Just about all of the above (minus Satan). Too pop-conscious for best-Metal-ever, tho', methinks (not to mention not-just-a-little-silly).

(7) FAIR WARNING by Van Halen - They'd never accept being simply a meatl band, but I'd suggest this disc boasts their heaviest and darkest incarnation, with the malevolent rifftacity of "Unchained" and "Mean Streets" therein. Still, not solely metal (not enough leathuh).

(8) DESTROYER by Kiss - Beautifully stoopid-but-Ezrin'ized pomp & circumstance, but "Beth" sinks the ship.

(9) AT WAR WITH SATAN by Venom - Possibly too over the top, but isn't that the point? The embossed leather-bound sleeve gains points, but lack of tunesmithery'll cost'em. "Rip Ride" makes a strong case, tho'.

Let's see....who'm I missing? Blue Oyster Cult? Ted Nugent? Anthrax? Def Lepard? Saxon? Deep Purple? Naaaah....

My vote is going towards NO SLEPP `TILL HAMMERSMITH.

Reign in Blood's great, personally I like Seasons in the Abyss better; you could make a real case for Celtic Frost's "Into the Pandemonium" being at least as good as "Reign in Blood"; today I'm wondering if Nile's "Black Seeds of Vengeance" isn't pretty close, too; enamored of semicolons at the moment, please excuse.

Probably more accurate to Balkanize a little and say RIB is the best speed-metal album ever, or the best eighties metal album. The nineties had so much great new stuff going on metalwise that by the end of it Slayer sound like they're in an entirely different genre from the young turks.

up there for me with Daydream Nation, Bug, Every good boy..., Nation of Millions, Fresh fruit etc

From a lacerated sky

oops. wrong myth.

I couldn't begin to pick a Best Metal Album EVER!. Every time I try, I hear something totally mind-roasting that I've never heard before, or re-hear something I haven't heard in years that completely blows me away. The most recent occurrence of this was Pestilence's Testimony Of The Ancients.

"Scenes From The Second Storey" by The God Machine is the greatest metal album ever.

-- Siegbran (siegbra...), January 21st, 2004.

OTM!

And this is probably a coincidence, but Tom Araya's vocals on it sound in some places quite similar to those on the Cro-Mags' Age of Quarrel. Something about the harsh yelping quality.

sometimes reign in blood sounds kinda wimpy to me now. the production on all those old thrash rexx seems to thin.

my favourite metal album is probably still opeth's 'still life', despite the opeth backlash and all.

'reign in blood' is extremely good though. relentlessly frantic, full of instantly classic riffs, with one of the most magnificent opening tracks on any metal record, period. i can even look past kerry king's tone-deaf solos and the king diamond-esque squeals.

btw, does anyone else find that the opening scream in 'angel of death' sounds exactly like the start of one of king's dial-up modem guitar solos?

I <a href=http://www.fastnbulbous.com/best_metal.htm>;concur!</a>

I love how the lyric sheet dutifully designates every guitar lead (you know, Solo: Hanneman/Solo: King/Solo: Hanneman etc.); then, at the end of "Raining Blood" credits 'em both with "noise" even tho it'
s just more wang-bar abuse like every other one of their solos!

(Best metal album ever? Sure, why not? On some days, anyway.)

dial-up modem guitar solos.
perfect.

:)

one of the most telling contrasts in soloing styles between the two guitarists occurs on the track 'seasons in the abyss'. king does his unorthodox dial-up modem thing and then hanneman follows it up with a conventional (yet awesome) lesson in metal soloing, complete with tapping and sweeping.

As a 15-year+ Slayer fan, I find it immensly gratifying that people are crapping all over Kerry King, who I was always underwhelmed by from Seasons in the Abyss on to the present day.

yet another thing to admire about this record is that tom araya didn't write any of the lyrics and they're often quite a mouthful. he makes a really noble attempt to fit all the words in, but it's amusing to hear him struggling with the word 'acquisition' on 'raining blood'.

"As a 15-year+ Slayer fan, I find it immensly gratifying that people are crapping all over Kerry King, who I was always underwhelmed by from Seasons in the Abyss on to the present day"

This is bullshit. I'd rather listen to a King "modem" solo than one of Hammett's sub-Malmsteenesque scale runners. There's more than one way to skin a cat, folks.