Slayer-Show no mercy, 1983

I always heard an unconfirmed story that Slayer were playing Iron Maiden and Judas Priest covers until they saw Metallica playing in a club around 1982. Like I said it's unconfirmed, but Slayer's debut is a bit like a cross between Metallica's debut Kill 'em all as well as Judas Priest, Raven, Venom and maybe a little bit of Maiden here and there. However there are two things that set prime Slayer apart from the pack. One is attitude and this album brings that across. The other of course is Dave Lombardo and although his style is more basic here than later on, you can still here how fast he can change the beat and that's a huge plus. Show no mercy might be a bit like Anthrax's debut "Fistful of metal" in that both are good albums, but both bands went in somewhat different directions after their debuts. Show no mercy is actually far more riff based than Slayer would be on their next two albums. Maybe they were listening to a lot of NWOBHM stuff at the time. Having said all that, I must say that I think this is Slayer's most underated album and hold on to your hats, but I think this is a better album than Metallica's Kill 'em all. I didn't think that back in the 80's and maybe not even in the 90's, but I am sure of it now. I think this album is not always appreciated by Slayer fans because most people got into Slayer during Reign in blood or South of heaven and those albums are way different than this disc. The songs here are far more structured than the band's later work as songs like "Evil has no boundries" and "Die by the sword" come across almost like anthems, well perhaps anthems for the apocalype. The structure of the album is the whole thing that makes it what it is. It is very tight for a debut with everything being very distinct and too the point. The band knows where they are going with the song and they lead you there easily. It's not as heavy as the rest of the albums the band did in the 80's, then again no one else was a whole lot heavier in 1983. Much like Metallica's Kill 'em all and the largely forgotten Heavy metal maniac album from Exciter, Show no mercy was a ground breaker. Not like Reign in blood yet this was one of the three really good speed metal albums to emerge in 1983. The production was sharp as well and allows the album to sound pretty good today. My favorite tracks include Evil has no boundries, Fight 'till death, Face the slayer, Tormentor and the title track.