Slayer’s first three albums had been on a rise from the unfiltered thrash of the debut to the focused, menacing and obliterating gloriousness of their third album “Reign in Blood”, an album still regarded as one of the best of the genre of all time. It was an album that changed and challenged the metal genre at the time and beyond. So much so, that for their follow up two years later, Slayer came up with “South of Heaven”, an album that dared to dial things back just a smidgen, and refused to be a carbon copy of the albums that had come before it. Those minimal changes in tempo and groove brought about minimal changes in the fandom. Those that had expected further progression int outright thrash and speed found themselves disappointed, while most accepted the change as the next step in Slayer’s own journey, one that was not to be slagged off but to be enjoyed and be impressed by, the desire to grow musically and avoid repeating themselves. In this they had certainly succeeded.
Moving into their follow up album, the band would have been completely aware of what the reaction to their album had been, and in themselves would also have been interested in continuing to create albums that they were working for rather than creating an album to pacify a small part of the fandom and the critics alike. Recorded during the first half of 1990 in two different studios, the composing of the album must have been an interesting process. Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King again provided the music for the tracks, dictating the style and speed of the album, while Tom Araya made his most major contribution to the lyrical aspect of the songs in the history of the band, with six of the ten songs having his fingers involved in the writing. The end result was often compared to a melding of the two previous albums, something that most Slayer fans would have found an interest concept prior to the album being released. What came out of “Seasons in the Abyss” was something perhaps greater than the two halves.
Slayer has offered up some amazing opening tracks on their albums. “Evil Has No Boundaries” is terrific. “Hell Awaits” is amazing. “Angel of Death” is incredible. “South of Heaven” is sensational. So this album needed a song that was going to make an immediate impact, something that was going to blow this album off the tracks from the outset. And that song is “War Ensemble”. And it succeeds on every level. Outrageous speed, from the opening ten seconds. It blasts out of the speakers and knocks you down. The ridiculous speed of the guitars and drums – I mean, just listen to what Dave Lombardo is playing here, my goodness. It is ridiculous. And there is no letup for the entire almost five minutes of the song. Hanneman and King are incredible here, and the explosion into the solo section of the track is outstanding. And Aaya’s vocals are brilliant. I saw it explained once as an aural blitzkrieg, and that is fitting. And when he climbs into the final entreaty of “The sport is war, total war, when the end is a slaughter, The final swing is not a drill, it's how many people I can kill” it just absolutely and metaphorically kills. Lyrically, this is a masterpiece of the horror of war, with a line such as “Indication of triumph, the numbers that are dead”. And what a way to open the album.
Bu it doesn’t end there, as the immediate segue into “Blood Red” continues the carnage, guitars and drums ablaze, but settling back from the outright speed of the album opener. This has another great rhythm riff through the song, and Tom stating his lyrics forthrightly throughout keeps the intensity glowing. Kerry and Jeff’s solos here are a highlight. The next segue takes us into “Spirit in Black” where the tempo lifts again and the energy blasts back out of the speakers. And what is not to like to have the devil himself taking you on a tour of hell and pointing out the sights as you go? Tom sings to us “Welcome to my world involve yourself within my dream, experience a life just like your mind thought not to be”, and into the chorus, “Coils of the serpent unwind, buried beneath you will find, deep in the halls of the damned, spirit in black till the end”. Great stuff, great solos, great song. Then we drop back in tempo again for “Expendable Youth” but with no drop in the intensity of the hard hitting lyrics from Tom Araya. This has a solid underneath rhythm played out again, giving Araya the platform to chant over the top on the state of the world on the streets and the battlegrounds. Lombardo’s drumming here may not be as busy as his usual fare, but it is bombastic, nonetheless.
The opening side of the album concludes with the riveting, intoxicating and scary as shit serenade of “Dead Skin Mask”, written about Ed Gein, with Araya going full psycho in his descriptions in his lyrics, combined with the masterful music composed by Jeff Hanneman to go along with them. Both lyrics and music are amazingly creepy throughout and complement each other to create this masterful track. The tempo adds to the suspenseful nature of the track, while the solo section through the middle is wonderful to listen to. Slayer has created some masterpieces over their long career, and this one ticks every box in that category. The addition of the child pleading for help through the final chorus is spine tingling. The monster in real life is amazingly portrayed by the song that displays his tale.
The second side of the album breaks you out of the horror film spell that has been cast, with the return to high voltage speed and thrash of “Hallowed Point” exploding out of the speakers. Guitars and drums are back to high intensity, as Arays sings of guns and the results of using them. In an interview after the album’s release, Araya said “That’s a kind of bullet — hollow points. It’s about a gun and what guns do to a body. It can turn flesh into confetti. It’s about the motivations to use a gun. People ask, ‘Is it an anti-gun song?’ No. ‘Is it a pro-gun song?’ No.”. The immediate segue into “Skeletons of Society” follows, the one major song here that mirrors the mid-tempo groove that came to the band through the previous album, but is a success as a result. Sticking with the same tempo and rhythm throughout the entire 4:40 of the track, the solid basic structure of the song is what makes it so effective and enjoyable. The lyrics sprouting Armageddon and the downfall of society are put together with that ongoing sense of menace but in a fun aspect to sing along with. Structurally though is where this song has its differences to most Slyer songs. It sounds almost like it was a challenge to the band and Kerry in particular to put together a box, have everything run the same race for the length of the song and make it entertaining. If this is indeed what was set, then kudos and congratulations. For me, it works.
Into “Temptation” we tread, and a studio anomaly that surely transformed this song into something special. Araya initially recorded his vocals in the style that he felt best suited the song. Song composer Kerry King however felt that his vision of the song demanded something different, so Araya recorded them a second time with King’s suggestions. The band had producer Rick Rubin come in to listen to both to decide which take should be used on the album, they accidentally played both tracks simultaneously — and it sounded great! As King recalls, “He just turned it on, and both vocals came out. He listened to it, gave a nod, and goes, 'Cool.' We all agreed to keep it”. “Born of Fire” blends tempo beautifully throughout, starting off at a rapid fire pace, but through the middle of the track pulls back to a thumping mid-tempo that suits the song better than you would have thought.
Having opened the album so magnificently, with so much thrash and fire and speed, a song that perfectly encapsulated how Slayer fans would have wanted the album to open, it then fell upon the band to come up with an equally epic closing track that would do the job of closing out the album in a similar style. And what they came up with was the title track itself, “Seasons in the Abyss”. But what they produce is not the raging thrasher but instead an absolutely stomping track, one that demands you bang your head along in time and sing along to at the top of your voice. A perfect singalong chorus – maybe not with lyrics you would expect a singalong to have. The tempo of the song throughout is perfect. It doesn’t feel like a slower song per se, because the groove of the guitar rhythm track and the constant rolling drumming and cymbal hitting from Lombardo create a bigger production of the basics that the song is structured along. It’s another Hanneman ripper, and lyrically Araya again comes to the party. What a way to finish off an amazing album.
I can totally understand why Slayer fans who came into the band all the way back at the beginning in 1983 have problems reconciling what is offered on “Seasons in the Abyss”. Where you have been raised on a diet of pure thrash and speed metal that the band delivered on their early albums, coming into this album must have been a slightly off-putting experience. On the other hand, for those that found Slayer at about the time this was released, it could be seen as being a liberating event. This is where I met Slayer.
That it took me so long to get around to listening to Slayer is not only a bit surprising it is also disappointing. I should have been listening to Slayer a lot earlier than this, but as none of my friend group with whom I shared all of our album purchases with had found their way into the band either, none of us had a reference point. Don’t get me wrong, I had heard snatches of songs at record stores and on metal programmes along the way, but had never actually made the connection to go out and buy their albums. As a result, it wasn’t until a few months before this album came along that I finally started listening to the band, with one of my then youngest friends insisted I borrow his copies of “Reign in Blood” and “South of Heaven” to discover a band he was sure I would love. And so I did. And that was a fortuitous occurrence for me. I may not have jumped on the Slayer Express at that point, but with the release of “Seasons in the Abyss” I was running along the tracks trying to leap on board. It became the first album of theirs that I obsessed over, but certainly not the last.
The fan debate on the relevance of this album does still crop up, and I feel a little fortunate that I was able to take in and love this album without the past albums intruding to colour my judgement. In general the same discussion about the speed and ferociousness of the songs on “South of Heaven” comes up in regards to “Seasons in the Abyss” as well. It’s not the case for the whole album, but there are certainly moments where the groove and riff sets in, rather than the pure speed or high level thrash that dominated the band’s earlier albums. “Dead Skin Mask” and “Seasons in the Abyss” are the two high profile songs on this album that do this. They are both terrific songs in their own right, but they are not like anything that came from their early days. And the best example on the album is perhaps my favourite song, “Skeletons of Society”. It’s a simple groove and riff, it tends to plod along, but I love the song and the lyrics. It mirrors “Expendable Youth”, though the soloing goes off on its own track as well. The argument is that this is not a true thrash album because of songs such as these. Except that, like all thrash music, the era was maturing, and this was resulting in slightly different versions of the genre, but surely no lesser albums. “... And Justice for All”, “Rust in Peace” and “Persistence of Time” could hardly be called lesser albums. And “Seasons in the Abyss” ranks alongside them in this way.
Still if you want thrash, you’ve still got it here. Album opener “War Ensemble” is a killer track, set off on the back of the remarkable drumming of Dave Lombardo who ignites the song at a fever pitch but is challenged by the riffing of Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King as Tom Araya somehow plays the bass at this speed while spitting out the lyrics in the same speed. “Blood Red” and “Spirit in Black” continue in a similar vein, as do “Hallowed Point” and “Born of Fire”.
This is another one of those episodes that I found very difficult to begin in the drafting process. How do I go about doing a podcast episode on an album that is so revered, and that I have a great personal love of, and doing the album the justice it deserves? My fear for some time – about two weeks of procrastinating and doing other episodes in front of it – was that I would just not find a way to adequately express why this album was so important at the time it was released, and why it remains so to this day. Eventually, as you have heard, I got it done. But even now, having recorded what you have heard, I feel as though I’ve missed some explanation as to what makes it such a terrific album. Is it the fact that it was the last album the band wrote together in the studio, without bringing in fully formed ideas from the outside? Is it the contribution from Tom Araya, whose lyrics here make a standout statement? Is it Dave Lombardo’s amazing and ridiculous contributions on the drums, the final time we would hear him in this band for over 15 years? Or is it the writing and guitaring loads of Hanneman and King? All of this is a part of it. And I guess, because this was the album where I first understood Slayer and their music, it has always been a favourite, and why I wanted to make sure I adequately expressed that.
In a year where so many fantastic but ever-changing heavy metal albums were released, you can’t deny that this one is still at the top of its game. All four band members are on fire here, Hanneman and King’s amazing guitars brought to the fore with Araya’s bass and vocals pushing the limits and Lombardo’s drumming smashing the silence and at times the sound barrier. While we will always have the raw majesty of “Show No Mercy” and “Hell Awaits”, and while “Reign in Blood” will always stand as a pinnacle, and while “South of Heaven” still ranks alongside these other albums, this album shows that thrash metal can show a maturity without overly compromising its principles. As I said initially, I can understand where those early fans are coming from with their criticism of this album, and find I am thankful in this instance for the fact that I was able to fall in love with this album for the right reasons and not just be angry about any perceived changes in the make-up of the songs from their earlier vintage. This still ranks as one of the greats.
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