The line up of the band was Tom Araya on bass and lead vocals, Jeff Hanneman on guitar, Kerry King on guitar, and Dave Lombardo on drums.
Side one has the track “Chemical Warfare”, a six-minute long rapid-fire assault on the senses. I like how the opening guitar duel goes from speaker to speaker. The unrelenting track appears on the 2010 video game Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.
Side two starts with “Captor of Sin”. I like that the tempo on this one twists and turns a bit, giving some respite between the on-going guitar onslaughts.
The title track “Haunting the Chapel” closes out the original vinyl release.
A later 1993 CD re-issue Haunting the Chapel added a fourth track called “Aggressive Perfector” which appeared on the 1983 compilation album called Metal Massacre III.
I was not at all familiar with this EP; thrash-metal was not something I was into at all in the 80‘s. While I can certainly listen to tracks from the genre, it is not something I think I could listen to with great regularity. An EP sized helping is just about right for me. To do this review l was able to find it over on Spotify as part of a combined set with Slayer’s November of 1984 live album Live Undead. I do have to give the guys props - they really put their all into every song.
I loved Slayer as a teenager. I had this on cassette and played it often in the late '80s.
ReplyDeleteEarly CD pressings of Show No Mercy included the three songs from this EP as bonus tracks. When they remastered the Metal Blade catalog in the '90s they split this off into a separate CD with a bonus track. Truth be told, the bonus track would have also fit on Show No Mercy!