Description
Polish pressed music cassette. Clear cassette with white text.
Poland is probably the country that had the most record labels in the world that only released cassettes. But even though there were lots of labels the market was still small as they only printed these for their own market inside of Poland. And a label in one town maybe lacked the distribution for another town and so on. A Warzaw or Krakow label might print more copies of a tape then labels from a smaller town. So even if there are thousands of releases you will notice how rare some are if you start to try to list the catalogue number of one particular label. Some cassettes just rarely shows up. One of the bigger cassettes labels were Takt Music in Warsaw. They started in 1990 as Tact then changed name in 1991 to Takt Music who existed up until 1994 before becoming a major pressing plant in Poland and changing the name to Takt.
Decade Of Aggression was recorded in 1990 and 1991, with mobile units in Lakeland, FL, at Wembley Arena in London, and in San Bernardino. A live set from this band is risky business because it’s Slayer live that gained an international reputation for taking on all comers and ripping them to shreds on a stage. The fear is simply that the audio recording alone won’t capture the sheer overblown intensity of the unit in a concert setting. The bad news is that it doesn’t; the good news is that it comes a lot closer than one might imagine before hearing it. It’s a double live album that approaches the league of Ted Nugent’s Double Live Gonzo!, the Who’s Live at Leeds, and the Allman Brothers’ At Fillmore East when it comes to representing a band perfectly. This is the original incarnation of Slayer with blastbeat progenitor Dave Lombardo beating hell out of the drum kit, guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman, and vocalist/bassist Tom Araya. They run through the material on virtually all of their studio albums to that point, going all the way back to 1983’s Show No Mercy with the tracks “The Anti-Christ” and “Black Magic.” While it’s true that the majority of the tunes here come from South Of Heaven, Reign In Blood, and Seasons In The Abyss, that’s as it should be, reflecting live the band’s compositional and overdriven blend of thrash, hardcore, and classic death metal. Producer Rick Rubin stays out of the way; his production seems to be in terms of shaping the live sound to make it sound like this is all one gig. It’s exhilarating (South Of Heaven) and exhausting (Dead Skin Mask), and by the time they get to Angel Of Death closing the first part of the show, most listeners will be drained. That said you also need to track down the volume 2 as its just as furious, with classic Slayer performances of Born Of Fire, Spirit In Black and the closer, Chemical Warfare. Decade Of Aggression is a recording for any serious Slayer fan to own, and one that serves as a fine — if excessive — introduction to any late bloomers out there.
Track listing:
1. Hell Awaits
2. The Antichrist
3. War Ensemble
4. South Of Heaven
5. Raining Blood
6. Altar Of Sacrifice
7. Jesus Saves
8. Dead Skin Mask
9. Seasons In The Abyss
10. Mandatory Suicide
11. Angel Of Death