Let's go back 30 years, to the beginning of the 86/87 school year. It started with the ground-breaking collaboration between Aerosmith and Run DMC, "Walk This Way." The next barrier-shattering punch came when the Beastie Boys came out with the rap-rock album, Licensed To Ill.

These only set us up for a different kind of "extreme" music, the neo-punk thrash of Slayer's brutal and noisy, Reign In Blood. We really hadn't heard anything like it. We knew right then and there; we did not need 30 years, to understand that this was a game-changer.

Perhaps the most accessible, or at least catchy, was the lead track, "Angel Of Death." My classmates stomped their feet to Dave Lombardo's ungodly drumming. We all marveled at how, at these speeds, he could hit the snare with such snap and pop. Moreover, his Paiste cymbals had the right and marvelous "sssssss" timbre, to make the songs feel as if you were entering Satan's world.

Since we were in high school, "Angel Of Death" forced history teachers not to sweep the Holocaust under the rug.

Here in San Francisco, everyone went down to the Guitar Center, then in SOMA, and asked how to get that tone.

Sigh, it's now 2016, and 10-year-olds just shrug, as they use their computer apps to play/perform "Angel Of Death." But that shouldn't discount the historic importance, and current enjoyment and appreciation of, "Angel Of Death." An audiophile may or may not like "Angel Of Death," but it is critical to his/her rock music education.

-Lummy The Loch Monster

• Angel Of Death

 Which led to this... - Prisoners 14:33:25 08/22/16 (1)
 RE: Which led to this... - fantja 12:02:22 08/24/16 (0)
 RE: Slayer, "Angel Of Death" - fantja 04:36:55 08/22/16 (0)

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 Which led to this... - Prisoners 14:33:25 08/22/16 (1)
 RE: Which led to this... - fantja 12:02:22 08/24/16 (0)
 RE: Slayer, "Angel Of Death" - fantja 04:36:55 08/22/16 (0)
 RE: Slayer, "Angel Of Death" - fantja 04:36:32 08/22/16 (0)

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koovuH7zX48