SLAYER – Still Reigning

18 years since their 1986 masterpiece album Reign In Blood, Slayer celebrated the return of drummer Dave Lombardo by playing the album in full, back to back, at a US summer tour this year.

This recording is made in Augusta on the 11th of July, and as always it’s quite an experience seeing the now veterans of Black Metal blasting through the 30-minute explosion of an album.

Songs like “Angel Of Death,” “Jesus Saves,” “Post Mortem,” and “Reigning Blood” are well known from their setlists, but songs like “Reborn,” “Necrophobic,” and “Criminally Insane” are a pleasure to hear again.

After Live Extrusion and War At The Warfields with Paul Bostaph on drums (now in Testament) this release is the first full-length concert film from Slayer which features the long lost Dave Lombardo, and he has quite an effect on the raw and brutal energy of it all.

Tom Araya doesn’t open his mouth in-between songs until they reach the end of “Epidemic” 8 songs into the set, and you can’t even catch your breath until you get that far. There also has to be a thin line between being blessed or cursed with the kind of fans Slayer has, cutting themselves and bleeding their guts out through the set. Dedicated, however, and truly mental these guys are.

During the last song, the epic “Reigning Blood,” it is actually raining blood on stage, and the fab four does not look pretty when they leave the stage, and Tom Araya greets the crowd with “Thank you very fucking much, see you in hell!!”

The extras are also a real treat. First fans get the six songs played before the Reign In Blood set from the actual show, and none of these are younger than 1990. “War Ensemble,” “Hallowed Point,” “Mandatory Suicide,” and “South Of Heaven” are, as always, great. But to top it all, there is a 15-minute Slayer In Their Own Words documentary, which takes the four legends back to their beginning, explaining how it all began over 20 years ago… and that’s quite special, because these guys just don’t open their mouth that often!