South of Heaven
| South of Heaven | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Slayer | ||||
|
Publication |
1988 |
|||
| Label (s) | Def Jam Records | |||
|
Format (s) |
CD, LP |
|||
|
Title (number) |
10 |
|||
|
running time |
36 min 53 s |
|||
| occupation |
|
|||
|
Slayer and Rick Rubin |
||||
|
||||
South of Heaven is the fourth album by the Californian thrash metal band Slayer . It differs from its predecessor Reign in Blood , as the songs are no longer as fast and hard as those of the predecessor. Some critics praised the album for demonstrating Slayer's will to develop musically rather than repeat itself. The song Spill the Blood also features undistorted guitars for the first time. The album was released in 1988 on Def Jam Records and was produced by Rick Rubin .
Track list
- South of Heaven - 4:58 (Music: Hanneman / Text: Araya )
- Silent Scream - 3:07 (Music: Hanneman, King / Text: Araya)
- Live Undead - 3:50 (Music: Hanneman / Text: Araya, King)
- Behind the Crooked Cross - 3:15 (Music: King / Text: Hanneman)
- Mandatory Suicide - 4:05 (Music: Hanneman, King / Text: Araya)
- Ghosts of War - 3:53 (Music: Hanneman, King / Text: King)
- Read Between the Lies - 3:20 (Music: Hanneman / Text: Araya, King)
- Cleanse the Soul - 3:02 (Music: Hanneman / Text: Araya, King)
- Dissident Aggressor - 2:35 (Music: Downing , Tipton / Text: Halford )
- Spill the Blood - 4:48 (Music / Text: Hanneman)
Song information
South of Heaven
South of Heaven begins relatively calmly with a spoken text. The speed and volume increase slowly afterwards. Hell is described in the further course of the song . That this is hell is shown by the fact that the place described is inhabited by damned souls according to the text, as is said in the passage "Souls condemned for all eternity" (in German: 'Forever damned souls'). South of Heaven is used in this song as a synonym for hell.
Silent Scream
In Silent Scream death or will sacrifice represented a child. The child was apparently killed because it is undesirable. The scene depicts an abortion , as is unmistakably expressed in the passage in the text "Sacrifice the unborn" . The text “A soul that will never rest” allows an association with the Middle Ages. Back then, people thought that a child who dies does not go to heaven, but to purgatory . That could mean the passage in the text, since the child's soul never finds rest in purgatory and cannot go to heaven. The song was covered by Vader for their tribute album Future of the Past in 1996 and by Children of Bodom for their album Hate Crew Deathroll in 2001 .
Live Undead
Live Undead tells of a character who is about to die.
Behind the crooked cross
The song Behind the Crooked Cross (in German in the figurative sense 'Behind the Swastika ') is about a soldier on the battlefield. He acts only in blind obedience and without conscience, a word that he has forgotten ( "Conscience a word I learned to forget" ).
Mandatory suicide
A bloody battle is described in Mandatory Suicide . The protagonist of the song is at the front, but that it is not voluntary, but as the title Mandatory Suicide (to German, Obligatory / Commanded suicide ') says he was forced to. Its use is, due to its difficulty, equated with a suicide, hence the title.
Ghosts of War
Ghosts of War tells of the spirits of war who seek revenge after waking from their sleep of death.
Read Between the Lies
Read between the Lies is about television preachers who promise that viewers will receive salvation if they send donations to them. The song questions these shady practices and tells of elderly people who donate their money out of naivety, but receive nothing in return.
Cleanse the soul
In Cleanse the Soul is about a person that someone sacrificed has and enjoy it now, standing over the body.
Dissident aggressor
Dissident Aggressor is a Judas Priest cover of their album Sin After Sin .
Spill the Blood
In Spill the Blood an authorial narrator speaks to the listener. He suggests that he should shed his blood. The narrator is the devil, he wants the addressee to kill himself and lose his soul to the devil through this sin.
reception
At the time, Frank Trojan wrote in Rock Hard magazine that after Reign in Blood , Slayers could only lose, and that is how it was “in the end”. He called the slowed pace and the extra melody “commendable”, and he also liked the guitar sound. Trojan pointed out the "controversial texts" that were on the "line of violence". All in all, there would be a “bland aftertaste”. 8.5 out of ten points were awarded. Allmusic's Alex Henderson mentioned the band's “determination” that made the album so “disturbing and powerful”. In particular, he described pieces such as Spill the Blood , Mandatory Suicide and Ghosts of War as "frighteningly convincing". He awarded four out of five stars.
The songs Behind the Crooked Cross and South of Heaven are also part of the background music composed by Robert Prince for the first-person shooter Doom and its follow-up Doom 2: Hell on Earth . Due to technical restrictions, the pieces can be heard without vocals and only as MIDI sequences.
live
Two songs on the album ( South of Heaven and Mandatory Suicide ) have a permanent place in the band's live sets. Examples of this can be found on the set lists of the live DVDs War at the Warfield and Still Reigning , the live EP Live Intrusion and the live double album Decade of Aggression .
Web links
- South of Heaven on Allmusic (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Begrand, Adrien: The Devil in Music . PopMatters . January 23, 2004. Retrieved March 17, 2007.
- ↑ Begand, Adrien: Blood and Thunder: Postmortem . Popmatters.com. August 15, 2006. Retrieved March 25, 2007.
- ^ Frank Trojan: SLAYER . South of Heaven . In: Rock Hard , No. 28.
- ↑ allmusic.com: Review South of Heaven by Alex Henderson
- ↑ Per Kristian Risvik: The Doom tracks .
- ↑ Per Kristian Risvik: The Doom 2 tracks .
- ↑ About . Slayer.net. Archived from the original on August 10, 2007. Retrieved March 17, 2007.
- ^ Ruhlmann, William: War at the Warfield . Allmusic . Retrieved March 20, 2007.
- ↑ Still Reigning . Allmusic . Retrieved March 20, 2007.
- ↑ Live intrusion . Allmusic . Retrieved March 20, 2007.
- ↑ Rivadavia, Eduardo: Decade of Aggression - Live . Allmusic . Retrieved March 20, 2007.