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Hell Awaits AI simulator
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Hell Awaits
Hell Awaits is the second studio album by American thrash metal band Slayer, released on April 8, 1985, by Metal Blade Records. After the band's 1983 debut Show No Mercy became the label's highest-selling release, producer Brian Slagel decided to record and release a second Slayer album. Unlike the previous album, which was paid for by band members, Slagel co-financed the recording budget with the band and recruited Ron Fair despite his lack of experience working with heavy metal musicians.
As with their debut, the lyrical themes on Hell Awaits include hell and Satan, while the intro of the title track played backwards reveals the repeated phrase "join us". Musically, the album features the band's most diverse work compared to their previous releases. According to Kerry King, he and Jeff Hanneman were very into Mercyful Fate at the time, which led to the longer and more progressive songs. The sound on the album has been described as "sludgy and amorphous" in comparison to the "sharp and clear" production of its succeeding album, Reign in Blood.
Hell Awaits received critical acclaim upon release, with many deeming it an improvement over the previous album due to its higher production quality and darker sound. As a result of the album's success, it was the last Slayer record to be released by Metal Blade and the only one to be produced by Slagel. Defined as "influential to future extreme metal acts", the best known songs from the album were re-recorded by various heavy metal bands and have appeared on several tribute albums.
Slayer's previous album, Show No Mercy, became Metal Blade Records' highest selling release, selling 40,000 copies worldwide; the success led producer Brian Slagel to want to record another album with them. Slagel hired producer Ron Fair, who worked for Chrysalis Records, and had seen the band perform live and enjoyed their performance. On seeing Slayer in the studio, Fair stated, "Wow, these guys are really angry," as he was inexperienced working with heavy metal musicians. Slagel financed the album, in stark contrast to Show No Mercy, which was financed by singer Tom Araya, who used his earnings as a respiratory therapist, and a loan from guitarist Kerry King's father.
The budget organized by Slagel allowed for professional assistance. Bernie Grundman provided audio mastering, Eddy Schreyer worked on remastering, and Bill Metoyer, who worked on the band's earlier release Haunting the Chapel, acted as sound engineer. The recording featured audio effects such as the intro to "Hell Awaits", a reversed recording of a demonic-sounding voice repeating "Join us", ending with "Welcome back". Still, Araya later stated the album had poor production quality: "Nowadays, production-wise, it's so under par. But for what it was at the time, those are amazing records to me. I guess we could go in and redo it. But why ruin it?"
Drummer Dave Lombardo, on the other hand, asserts the album was professionally done compared to Show No Mercy: "I didn't have to overdub the cymbals, and we had a really good engineer." Lombardo's favorite song is "At Dawn They Sleep", "because it was kind of slow and grungy, but then it had that double-bass part at the end." While recording the track, neither guitarists King, nor Jeff Hanneman who wrote the lyrics, were in the studio—only Araya and Slagel. On reading the lyrics, which featured a misspelled word, Araya sang it as it was spelled, although it is not a real word. The song "Hardening of the Arteries" on the album ends with a very similar section that makes up the beginning of the song "Hell Awaits" and is also one of the only Slayer songs to fade out on a continuous riff.
The album's cover art was done by Albert Cuellar. Araya told The Quietus that the art was put together "overnight", with the scene of "skeletal demon beasts" fighting in hell directly resembling a scene of a 1977 issue of the comic Heavy Metal. It went unnoticed until 2011 when a blog post uploaded PDFs of the story "Approaching Centauri" drawn by Jean Giraud.
To promote Hell Awaits, Slayer embarked on the Combat Tour with Venom and Exodus. Exodus guitarist Gary Holt commented, "We immediately bonded with the Slayer guys. It was two bands of friends playing with one band of heroes, you know? We were just star-struck."
Hell Awaits
Hell Awaits is the second studio album by American thrash metal band Slayer, released on April 8, 1985, by Metal Blade Records. After the band's 1983 debut Show No Mercy became the label's highest-selling release, producer Brian Slagel decided to record and release a second Slayer album. Unlike the previous album, which was paid for by band members, Slagel co-financed the recording budget with the band and recruited Ron Fair despite his lack of experience working with heavy metal musicians.
As with their debut, the lyrical themes on Hell Awaits include hell and Satan, while the intro of the title track played backwards reveals the repeated phrase "join us". Musically, the album features the band's most diverse work compared to their previous releases. According to Kerry King, he and Jeff Hanneman were very into Mercyful Fate at the time, which led to the longer and more progressive songs. The sound on the album has been described as "sludgy and amorphous" in comparison to the "sharp and clear" production of its succeeding album, Reign in Blood.
Hell Awaits received critical acclaim upon release, with many deeming it an improvement over the previous album due to its higher production quality and darker sound. As a result of the album's success, it was the last Slayer record to be released by Metal Blade and the only one to be produced by Slagel. Defined as "influential to future extreme metal acts", the best known songs from the album were re-recorded by various heavy metal bands and have appeared on several tribute albums.
Slayer's previous album, Show No Mercy, became Metal Blade Records' highest selling release, selling 40,000 copies worldwide; the success led producer Brian Slagel to want to record another album with them. Slagel hired producer Ron Fair, who worked for Chrysalis Records, and had seen the band perform live and enjoyed their performance. On seeing Slayer in the studio, Fair stated, "Wow, these guys are really angry," as he was inexperienced working with heavy metal musicians. Slagel financed the album, in stark contrast to Show No Mercy, which was financed by singer Tom Araya, who used his earnings as a respiratory therapist, and a loan from guitarist Kerry King's father.
The budget organized by Slagel allowed for professional assistance. Bernie Grundman provided audio mastering, Eddy Schreyer worked on remastering, and Bill Metoyer, who worked on the band's earlier release Haunting the Chapel, acted as sound engineer. The recording featured audio effects such as the intro to "Hell Awaits", a reversed recording of a demonic-sounding voice repeating "Join us", ending with "Welcome back". Still, Araya later stated the album had poor production quality: "Nowadays, production-wise, it's so under par. But for what it was at the time, those are amazing records to me. I guess we could go in and redo it. But why ruin it?"
Drummer Dave Lombardo, on the other hand, asserts the album was professionally done compared to Show No Mercy: "I didn't have to overdub the cymbals, and we had a really good engineer." Lombardo's favorite song is "At Dawn They Sleep", "because it was kind of slow and grungy, but then it had that double-bass part at the end." While recording the track, neither guitarists King, nor Jeff Hanneman who wrote the lyrics, were in the studio—only Araya and Slagel. On reading the lyrics, which featured a misspelled word, Araya sang it as it was spelled, although it is not a real word. The song "Hardening of the Arteries" on the album ends with a very similar section that makes up the beginning of the song "Hell Awaits" and is also one of the only Slayer songs to fade out on a continuous riff.
The album's cover art was done by Albert Cuellar. Araya told The Quietus that the art was put together "overnight", with the scene of "skeletal demon beasts" fighting in hell directly resembling a scene of a 1977 issue of the comic Heavy Metal. It went unnoticed until 2011 when a blog post uploaded PDFs of the story "Approaching Centauri" drawn by Jean Giraud.
To promote Hell Awaits, Slayer embarked on the Combat Tour with Venom and Exodus. Exodus guitarist Gary Holt commented, "We immediately bonded with the Slayer guys. It was two bands of friends playing with one band of heroes, you know? We were just star-struck."