Slayer released Reign in Blood in the United States on October 7, 1986. Their third studio album packed 10 songs into 28 minutes and 58 seconds, with “Angel of Death” at the front and “Raining Blood” at the finish. Working with Rick Rubin gave that speed a sharper edge.
Signing to Rubin’s Def Jam label took some convincing. Kerry King recalled wondering how a company associated with hip-hop would handle a band as heavy as Slayer. The attraction was the attention they might receive: Rubin actively wanted a metal band, and Slayer would stand apart on his roster. In a 2011 interview with Guitar World, King explained that the band decided to take the chance.
Rubin enlisted engineer Andy Wallace, whose connection to the sessions went beyond knowing the producer. Wallace had founded Hit City West in Los Angeles during the 1970s, building the studio himself before selling his share and moving to New York. That was the studio where Slayer recorded Reign in Blood. In his 2001 interview with Tape Op, Wallace traced his relationship with Rubin through their work with Run-D.M.C. and the Beastie Boys, then recalled returning to Los Angeles for the Slayer album.
“He cleaned up our sound,” King told Guitar World. Rubin encouraged Slayer to shed the reverb surrounding their earlier recordings, putting the guitars closer to the listener. The arrangements became more economical, too. Drummer Dave Lombardo told GRAMMY.com in 2021 that Rubin helped the band recognize what a song could lose. “Whatever’s not necessary, it shouldn’t be there,” he said. Only the opening and closing tracks passed four minutes; “Necrophobic” was over in roughly a minute and a half.
Slayer had rehearsed heavily before recording. In Metal Hammer’s 2021 oral history, Lombardo estimated that he completed his drum tracks in three or four days. The takes depended on the players getting them right, with no computer editing to assemble a performance. Vocalist and bassist Tom Araya remembered repeating takes until Rubin was satisfied.
There was room for unfinished ideas, though. King was completing the words to “Raining Blood” while his bandmates recorded, working from a concept guitarist Jeff Hanneman had started. Other material had older roots: King told Guitar World that the main riff in “Altar of Sacrifice” came from an earlier song called “Ice Titan.” “Reborn” grew from a film about a witch trial that he had watched before work on the album.
The finished running time gave Araya pause. He recalled asking Rubin whether such a short record would qualify as an album. Rubin was satisfied that Slayer had 10 complete songs. They left it at that.
Getting those songs into stores presented a different problem. Columbia, Def Jam’s distribution partner, refused the album over “Angel of Death,” which addressed Nazi doctor Josef Mengele’s atrocities. Geffen ultimately handled distribution, and the opening track stayed.
In 2004, Slayer’s original lineup performed the entire album for Still Reigning. Director Dean Karr filmed Araya, King, Hanneman and Lombardo at the Civic Center in Augusta, Maine, following the record through to “Raining Blood.” For the song’s final 45 seconds, stage blood poured from above, soaking the musicians, their instruments and the stage. The album’s closing image had become the show’s finale.
