5 Juli: Waldrock 2008

 

Slayer

The American thrash metal-band Slayer was founded in 1981 by the guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King. Slayer became one of the most famous bands in the thrash-metal scene, with help of their album from 1986 called ‘Reign Blood’. Together with Megadeth, Anthrax and Metallica they are known as ‘The Big Four’.

Slayer arose out of the ‘Huntington Beach Area’- suburbs from Los Angeles. From 1982 on they went on stage with Tom Araya, Kerry King, Jeff Hanneman and Dave Lombardo. In the beginning they mainly covered songs from Judas Priest and Iron Maiden but later they also presented their own stuff. The band had it´s break through in 1983. After a local gig, called Woodstock, the band was asked by Brian Slagel from Metal Blade Records to deliver a song for the album Metal Massacre II. The band agreed to that, provided that Brian Slagel also would support them to record their debut album. Slayer delivered the song ‘Aggressive Perfector’ for Metal Massacre II and in December 1983 they finalized their debut album ‘Show No Mercy’.

After that the label Def Jam by Rick Rubin contracted slayer. Among that label ‘Reign in Blood’ was delivered, by many people seen as classic thrash metal. That was the reason Slayer grew up to one of the ‘Big Four’ (thrash-) metal bands from the 80´s.

By releasing the album ‘South of Heaven’ Slayer let, to some extent, off the fast rhythms which characterized their music. With songs like ‘Behind the Crooked Cross’ and ‘Mandatory Suicide’ melody became predominant for their music. The next album ‘Seasons in the Abyss’ from 1990 was more like a mix out of the music from ‘Reign In Blood’ and the melody they already used in ‘South Of Heaven’.

After they released the live album in 1991, Dave Lombardo left the group because of disagreements in-between the band. First he was replaced by Greg Hall (Sacred Reich) who already earlier helped out in emergencies. After all the real alternative became Paul Bostaph (ex-Forbidden). After the album ‘Divine Intervention, with which they went on with their current style from ‘Seasons In The Abyss’, Bostaph left the band. He was replaced by John Dette (ex-Testament), who took part in the album ‘Undisputed Attitude’, which mostly consists of punk covers. After that album Bostaph came back.

1998 the album ‘Diabolus In Musica’ was released, with that album they pursued a new, a modern course. With the album ‘God Hates Us All’, which was released in 2001, they even took a step forward on that course. Later in the year 2001 Dave Lombardo came back again.

At 4th of August 2006 the new album ‘Christ Illusion’ has been released.