Description

Tomas Enrique Araya Diaz was born in Chile in 1961 and when he was five years old his family moved to California. His younger brother John Araya was born three years after the family had moved to Usa. In the early 80s the two brothers had a band called Evil together with bass player As Messi and drummer Jake Alvarado. Slayer was formed in 1981 by Los Angeles schoolmates and guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King and soon afterwards Kerry King asked Tom to join Slayer while his brother John would become Slayer’s guitar tech for most of Tom’s career in the band, starting in 1983 when he used to “hang out in the garage and watch the guys practice”. Early Slayer was an ordinary heavy metal act until they say Metallica live in 1982 and that show got them convinced that they had to play faster and heavier and with their track Black Magic, written in February 1983, they definitely ventured into thrash metal and never looked back. They also discovered that they got more attention by exploiting a threatening Satanic imagery. The band recorded demo material and became a popular live act in the Los Angeles area. With classic albums such as Show No Mercy and Hell Awaits the band gained an almost rabid following and were contacted by Rick Rubin who wanted to signed them to his Def Jam record label. The label was better known for acts such as Run DMC so it felt like an odd choice to sign a furious thrash act. However after demoing material for Def Jam it would soon to prove that the band had done the right choice. The band would release three studio albums on Def Jam; Reign In Blood, South Of Heaven and Seasons In The Abyss. These three albums would all become classics in the genre and the first of them, Reign In Blood, are nowadays hailed as the best thrash metal album of all time together with Metallica’s Master Of Puppets. This album is a pure joy for anyone interested in the band. It has some unbelievable rare material like some Evil recordings where you can hear Tom Araya tackling songs done by both Motley Crue and Scorpions, recorded a month before the release of Show No Mercy. Then you have classic demo and rehearsal material with Slayer from 1983 that got them onto the Metal Massacre album as well as the instrumental Def Jam demo material for the upcoming Reign In Blood album. So even if the sound quality isnt the best in places thrash metal lovers still knows what to do, buy or die

Track list:
1. Evil Has No Boundaries-Satans Children demo 1983
2. Simple Aggression-Satans Children demo 1983
3. Tormentor-Satans Children demo 1983
4. Night Rider-Satans Children demo 1983
5. Ice Titan-Satans Children demo 1983
6. Assassin-Satans Children demo 1983
7. Final Command-Satans Children demo 1983
8. Black Magic-rehearsal demo 1983
9. Die By The Sword-rehearsal demo 1983
10. Criminally Insane-Def Jam demo 1986
11. Altar Of Sacrifice-Def Jam demo 1986
12. Reborn-Def Jam demo 1986
13. Jesus Saves-Def Jam demo 1986
14. Raining Blood-Def Jam demo 1986
15. Evil -Evil-demo 1982
16. Evil -Crionics-demo 1982
17. Evil -Blackout-Scorpions cover-November 1983
18. Evil -Looks That Kill-Motley crue cover-November 1983