This review is easy to write.
I first got this album on double music cassette in about 1992. I had seen Slayer as part of the “Clash of the Titans” tour at Wembley Arena and really liked them. They recorded the video to “War Ensemble” at that particular concert. I think that some of the songs on this album were recorded at that exact gig that I saw. The tape version has since been supplemented by a CD version and finally an MP3 version on the NAS drive.
This is an AWESOME album.
If you only buy one thrash metal album then it had better be this one and then in all honesty you only need to play the first song as it covers all needs of guitar based turn-on.
My favourite songs on this album are (and I don’t apologise for the length of the list):
- Hell Awaits
- War Ensemble
- South of Heaven
- Raining Blood
- Dead Skin Mask
- Seasons in the Abyss
- Mandatory Suicide
- Angel of Death
- Hallowed Point
- Blood Red
- Postmortem
- Chemical Warfare
The atmosphere conveyed by these disks is brilliant. You can only find one better live album out there (Live After Death). This puts all others to shame. Get it. Play it. LOUD.