Cover of “Reign In Blood” by Slayer
One of heavy metal’s most insane and influential albums, released on hip-hop label Def Jam, has an average speed of 200 bpm and is a mere 29.03 minutes long.
It fits on one side of a cassette tape – you could listen to it, flip the cassette and listen again. Which is what they did in 1986.
Because Slayer were a force of nature that blew everything away: Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman on the guitars, mat-swinging hard-boiled poets of the abyss who opened the album with the “Angel Of Death” that caused the expected fascist suspicion, singer and lead-footed bassist Tom Araya and the World’s best (if fickle) metal drummer Dave Lombardo popularized thrash metal like no one else.