Slayer - South Of Heaven

It says a lot when your favourite album by a band is a covers album (Undisputed Attitude). Add to that the sea of shit Slayer have been peddling both recordings wise and sensationalist news wise the last few years, and sprinkle that with me happening to catch a series of lacklustre live performances over the last five years or so. Cumulatively, I could be forgiven maybe for overlooking the fact that Slayer do actually have a few decent albums, South Of Heaven being one of them.

I have a verrrrrrry limited palette for thrash (usually not going any further than the odd GWAR record or Municipal Waste's second album) but you can't deny that Slayer have their own brutal sound, more so detectable here and on Reign In Blood than elsewhere; that super-evil, lightening fast thrash metal which captured the hearts of thousands of spotty teenagers the world over. If I was pubing it up during Slayer's glory days, I probably would have fucking lived and breathed this shit.

I don't need to tell you to listen to Slayer. Either press the button or fuck off. Metuuuuuuuul!

Agoraphobic Nosebleed / Halo - Split 7"

I think this is probably the hardest thing in the ANb discography to get a hold of. Sure, the Insect Warfare split and the Converge split can fetch rather hefty prices, and Tentacles of Destruction is fairly limited, but for sheer difficulty in regards to unoptainability (is that even a word? *edit - no, it's not), the split EP with Halo currently holds the crown (seeing as I don't have all the ANb shit yet, I won't say for definite, but I'd be surprised if anything else is more difficult to obtain).

The three original ANb tunes are from the Altered States era (they have that sound/feel, at least), and they are the typical old-school ANb stock of uber-fast drum-machine grindcore punishment. What I didn't see coming however, was the Slayer cover that takes up most of their side. "The Antichrist" definitely sounds a lot better with Richard Johnson on vocals, but I was never the biggest fan of Slayer, so I could take or leave this cover version.

Halo are the polar-opposites to ANb, in the speed stakes, at least. Deathly slow drumming and horrendous guitar feedback and low-end vibes make up the main "songs", where sparse but abrasive vocals howl over the top of it all, creating a rather unsettling yet interesting listen. Despite it's snail-like pace, the track doesn't last that long and I am left contemplating whether to search for more Halo material or not...

This was released on Relapse Records a while ago now, and was part of some subscription series. That's probably why it is so bloody difficult to come by. I'm glad I've finally gotten a hold of it though, as it goes towards the inevitable completion of my ANb collection, and it also contains ANb material that isn't available anywhere else, as far as I can tell.

Trivia - did any of you eagle-eyed ANb fans notice that track one is titled "Street Magician" on the cover but the same track is named "Ghetto Wizard" on the inner sleeve?