SLAYER — Show No Mercy (review)

SLAYER — Show No Mercy album cover Album · 1983 · Thrash Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Phonebook Eater
Slayer is one of the most popular metal bands in music history, mainly thanks to the 1986 release "Reign In Blood", a landmark album for the genre. Their debut album, "Show no Mercy", isn't at all at that album's heights, but it still maintains to be a good and enjoyable album, that has become among metal heads a sort of a cult album.

Regularly classified as one of the four great thrash metal bands ("the big four"),with Megadeth, Anthrax and Metallica, Slayer has started their career seeming just like one of those heavy bands such as Venom, with fast, heavy songs and satanic references in the lyrics; "Show no Mercy" has these two elements, and these are exactly what made it a cult album. Furthermore, we have some pretty typical thrash metal characteristics that make the album such: take the screamed but nut growled vocals, the shredding guitars and solos, the fast and repetitive rhythm, a very rough and poor production, which is nothing compared to the impressively refined one of Slayer's third album, "Reign In Blood".

"Show No Mercy" has ten tracks, which all flow pretty fluidly along the album, but the structure as a whole doesn't feel too solid or consistent, musically speaking. The only thing that is solid is the lyrical content, at all times referring to satanism, hell, violence and such. Many songs, by nature,don't have a label, like some other songs have, saying where the song should be positioned in the LP, but in "Show no Mercy" I can't see any of these labeled tracks, probably due also to their sort of in your face, violent tones . There are some good moments here, like the opener "Evil Has No Boundaries", or "The Antichrist", one of the band's most successful songs of the first era, the somewhat catchy riff of "Die By The Sword" does sound a bit like a sort of guilty pleasure. Then again there are some songs I don't car for, but their definitely less than the ones I like.

A really good album, to conclude, and a great way to start a career. If thrash metal is your thing, I strongly recommend you pick this up ad try it.
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