At a small Los Angeles studio called Hit City West, four men were playing faster than almost anyone had played before. The band was Slayer, and the record they were making, Reign in Blood, would run less than half an hour. That brevity was not an accident; it was the point. Slayer released Reign in Blood on October 7, 1986.
A dry sound at 210 beats per minute
Reign in Blood, Slayer's third studio album, arrived on October 7, 1986. It was their first for Def Jam Recordings, and it moved at a tempo around 210 to 220 beats per minute. Producer Rick Rubin, working with a metal band for the first time, pushed for a dry, close sound by banning reverb entirely. What emerged was the shortest album in the band's catalogue, yet it would shake the industry before a single copy sold.
The trouble started with the opening song. 'Angel of Death' was about Josef Mengele and his experiments at Auschwitz. Guitarist Jeff Hanneman had read books about Mengele while on tour, and the lyrics did not soften the subject. The rest of the album dealt with death, madness and murder, but it was that first track that made people inside the record business flinch.
Columbia refuses, Geffen steps in
Columbia Records, the distributor for Def Jam, simply refused to put the album out. Its president, Al Teller, called 'Angel of Death' offensive. The release was delayed while Slayer and Rubin searched for another way to get the record into stores. Eventually Geffen Records stepped in and handled distribution, which meant the album everyone had refused to touch was now on its way to the public.
When Reign in Blood finally appeared, it did not need radio play. No songs from the album were aired on the radio, and big chains like Wal-Mart and Kmart refused to stock it. Yet the record still became the first Slayer album to enter the Billboard 200. It debuted at number 127 and climbed to number 94 six weeks later, a quiet but stubborn success built entirely on word of mouth and live shows.
Closed doors and picketed concerts
That climb was remarkable because so many doors stayed closed. Religious groups picketed Slayer concerts, and retailers would not carry the album. The music itself gave no comfort: short songs, no reverb, no pause. Rubin's insistence on a dry sound made every riff feel closer and more dangerous, as if the band were playing in the room with you.
What the label feared most became the album's strength. The refusal by Columbia Records drew a line between Slayer and the mainstream, and the band stepped over it willingly. The controversy around 'Angel of Death' made people curious, but the speed and precision of Reign in Blood made them stay. A record that lasted under half an hour had managed to outlast the panic that almost buried it.
A record that lasted under half an hour had managed to outlast the panic that almost buried it.
By the end of the decade, Reign in Blood was no longer an outrage; it was a benchmark. The album's shortest running time in the Slayer discography proved that intensity did not need length. The band had taken the fastest, harshest music they could imagine and forced the industry to deal with it, not by compromising but by finding another door when the first one slammed shut.