Slayer - Seasons In The Abyss (1990)

With the bowels of Hell still vomiting black smoke from the wrecking machine that was the vile ‘South Of Heaven’, the band somehow manage this time to cross the pitch, cold visions of that record with the intensity and blood-soaked abomination of ‘Reign…’, ‘Seasons…’ in turn being the last great Slayer album and the also, rather tragically, the last, up until 2006’s ‘Christ Illusion’, to feature legendary sticksman Dave Lombardo. We won’t go into why the guy departed the band, except to say that without this thunder Slayer became a far lesser band.
‘Seasons…’ is purtid, astonishing, drenched in sin, and ultra-heavy, raging on opener ‘War Ensemble’, the group casually bringing back those violent ‘Reign In Blood’ pinnacles as Tom screams and rasps like a demonic priest, in turn his spit-filled tones derailed by King and Hanneman’s twin strike, wild solo’s careering off into the ether like spasmodic missiles.
Ten songs on offer, each and every one a riotous classic, managing to chug yet batter, and then speed up like some murderous rollercoaster, spiralling into the darkest tunnels where the true horrors lurk. War ravaged cities where the charred dead smoke under the pallid sky, serial killers preying on hapless victims, and in the immense title track and album closer, at first creeping with sinister motion then flattening the wounded, melting into a truly accessible chorus, and that’s the whole key with Slayer, their mightiest moments not merely being evil noise-fests but somehow managing a melody that embeds itself in the brain like a parasite. ‘Skeletons Of Society’ is another of those infectious tunes where the flames flicker and dance in the distance, but it’s the sprawling, seedy ‘Dead Skin Mask’ that causes the most fear, made all the more hideous by the calm, cold and arrogant chorus.
In between these classics there are more to get your fangs into, monstrous thrash assaults, black passages of act, war-torn anthems for the thrashers.
‘Seasons…’ is a leviathan. The last word in thrash. The last great Slayer album cover too 10/10