Slayer - Show No Mercy (1983)

When it comes to Slayer most people usually say their favorite albums are, ‘Reign in Blood’ or ‘Hell Awaits,’ and while I do enjoy these albums and recognize their significance I’ve always had an insane amount of worship for their debut, ‘Show no Mercy.’

Show no Mercy has always reminded me of Metallica’s debut, ‘Kill ‘em All’ for the simple fact that they’re both fast, angry and aggressive thrash records with a strange degree of adolescent innocence underscoring both albums while they’re also great drinking, fish pumping, head banging, sing-a-long metal classics. What’s also interesting is that both albums have a raw sort of production to them and it’s also notable that both bands would become increasingly more proficient at their craft on their next couple of albums.

Anyway, all Metallica comparisons aside, Show no Mercy’s song selection is quite amazing with the lead off track, ‘Evil has no Boundaries’ pumping the listener up instantly while ‘The Antichrist’ has always been my favorite Slayer song. You’ve also got to love, ‘Die by the Sword’ or the slightly darker sounding ‘Black Magic’ and ‘The Final Command’ is just goddamn epic sounding.

I also much like the fact that Tom Araya uses lots of high pitched vocals on this album since they seem to work perfectly with the music. He really didn’t use the high vocals after this album and that’s a bit unfortunate I think, but his more aggressive shout did seem more fitting overall considering the darker mood of the next couple Slayer albums. What's more Jeff and Kerry’s riffs/solos are quite amazing to say the least and show a good amount of NWOBHM influence. Furthermore as already stated I like the youthful violence this album holds. They were young, pissed off and ready to let the world know about it.

At just thirty five minutes, Show No Mercy delivers the goods perfectly and has done so for many years of my life. I remember I first bought this album on cassette sometime back in the early 90’s and I must have played it too much because eventually my cassette player ate my tape. Bastard! It’s strange to think that I was just two years old when this album came out; many of you were just fetuses in 1983 or even a few years from even being conceived for that matter.

At any rate, if for some reason you don’t own this album definitely check it. It might not be as technical or fast sounding as future recordings, but it remains a true statement of thrash excellence in my opinion.