10 Perfect Metal Albums Everyone Tried To Copy

For as intense as thrash metal may have been to metal fans in the early days, there was a long way to go before things started to get really heavy. As much as bands like Metallica may have had some dark themes and heavy guitar riffs, their lofty side had a lot more beauty in it than even some metalheads could take at the time. The speed was already picking up, but Reign In Blood may as well be a metal album if it were interpreted by a hardcore punk band.

Going through every song on this album, Slayer crammed every single demonic guitar riff they could think of into the mix, all while playing them at breakneck speeds like the beginning of Angel of Death. Although some of the songs may have drawn some eyes at the time for their offensive lyrics, that just added another layer of shock into the mix as well, with Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman playing some of the most chaotic solos that the genre ever heard at the time.

Even though the record itself only ran a little less than half an hour, no one felt short changed by that, almost using the record as a way to test your endurance as you were pummeled by the raw sounds metal. Compared to the kind of sounds coming out of Iron Maiden, this is where things started to turn a corner, with bands like Slipknot rising to prominence years later with a few pages taken out of Slayer's playbook. Metal was already a bit of a tough sell for the fairweather fans, but listening to this record almost feels like the band are using you as a punching bag on every single track.