(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Slayer were formed in 1982 as the American answer to the “black metal” of Venom, but they soon became leaders in their own right, serving as a link between speed metal and death metal. Formed in Los Angeles by bassist and singer Tom Araya and guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman, Slayer immediately captured the imagination of the more perverse segment of youth with songs that exalted evil in its most grotesque forms.

The debut album, Show No Mercy (Metal Blade, 1983), is still somewhat clumsy: the music of Evil Has No Boundaries, the key track, is second-hand heavy metal dripping with satanism and Nazism. But even the more ferocious tracks, such as The Anti-Christ and Die By The Sword, foreshadow developments that go beyond mere sensationalism and anticipate grindcore. The lethal assaults of Chemical Warfare and Captor Of Sin, on the EP Haunting The Chapel, and especially the title track of Hell Awaits (Metal Blade, 1985)—which would become the opening theme of their concerts and the epitome of their panzer-fast tempos—usher in the band’s peak era.

Reign In Blood (Def Jam, 1986) fulfills those promises, launching singer Tom Araya, drummer Dave Lombardo, and guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman (the true mastermind behind the music) into the Valhalla of the genre. The speed metal of Angel Of Death and Postmortem is not only relentless but also overwhelming; it draws vital energy from the “horror-shock” imagery of their predecessors (beginning with that of Motley Crue) and erects vampiric monuments to the aberrant madness of humankind. Frenetic tracks such as Altar Of Sacrifice are like documentaries, projected at triple speed, of gruesome satanic rituals. Raining Blood closes the spectacle under the sign of the most tempestuous moods, as if Judgment Day were imminent (the only possible conclusion to the preceding atrocities).
Despite the constant frenzy, Slayer’s compositions always retain a minimal melodic identity, however submerged in the breathless babble typical of thrash. Reign In Blood is one of the milestones of heavy metal (thanks also to producer Rick Rubin).

South Of Heaven (Def Jam, 1988) relaxes the tension somewhat, making room for the (albeit macabre) refrain of Spill The Blood, while the title track builds its melodrama on a more sophisticated interplay of tempos and screams. The experimentation benefits above all Lombardo’s drumming, a model of flexibility and eclecticism. Yet the same sense of death still hovers over the album, the same stench of rotting carcasses, and songs such as Mandatory Suicide remain catalogs of horrors.

The fifth album, Seasons In The Abyss (Def American, 1990), does not match the previous two, but at least War Ensemble and Expendable Youth, as well as the inevitable tribute to the latest deranged killer (Dead Skin Mask), must be added to the core repertoire. The title track repeats the experiment of the previous album’s title track. And Disorder, the song composed with Ice-T for a soundtrack, shows how much the band had matured.

Divine Intervention (American, 1995), without Lombardo and with Paul Bostaph (ex Exodus), rediscovers the magical formula of speed metal terror while toning down the music. If Sex Murder Art and Killing Fields delve into the usual themes of murder, rape, and cannibalism, Dittohead and Serenity In Murder instead verge on grunge. It is nonetheless a strong comeback that propels the band back to the top of the charts.

Undisputed Attitude (American, 1996) is a collection of punk covers.

Diabolus In Musica (American, 1998) is a collection of originals performed with punk-rock frenzy.

Their music is not, in fact, "horror" music, but "terror" music; it is a pathological study of the terror inflicted by men upon other men, and the leaden atmospheres of their songs serve only to emphasize the fundamental gloom of human existence, condemned to live by such hatred. The pathological horror of Slayer draws nourishment from reality, from the very history of humanity. In this sense, it qualifies as a metaphysical abstraction of the human condition, setting itself clearly in contrast to the sensationalist shock-horror of Los Angeles and opening the great era of death metal. Neither the thriller-like tension of Black Sabbath nor the morbid fascination of Venom had reached such heights.