Slayer
Haunting The Chapel

THE REVIEW

After the big hit with "Show No Mercy" the previous year, the still young Slayer returns to the spotlight with an EP as brief as it is devastating... You may have guessed that I'm talking about "Haunting The Chapel," the band's second effort, if we want to call it that, from the California band.
As previously mentioned, this demo is not considered a real work due to the reduced number of songs it contains, but as is often the case, the best things come in small packages, so at least trying to review this work seemed right to me.
An additional reason to highlight "Haunting The Chapel" is the stylistic change of the group, which is slowly taking a sharper form, starting to shed perhaps too many devotions to the NWOBHM with which their debut was imbued.

A driving rhythm followed by paranoid riffs, garnished with sharp guitars firing solos on very high notes, an unstoppable drum, and a voice, that of Tom Araya, sometimes warm and other times schizophrenic, thanks to his infernal screeches... The focused Slayer all in six and a half minutes: ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Chemical Warfare, a true gem of the EP, destined to be one of the group's strong points live, which alone is worth at least listening to the record.
The second song we find is Captor Of Sins, which starts with a half-minute solo and then continues in their post "Show No Mercy" style, completing another song of fine craftsmanship.
The third track is the title track, probably the weakest of the EP's songs, but which still maintains high standards.
The final Aggressive Perfector, which, along with the opening track, is revealed to be the strong point of the record, although in a different version, as a bonus track in "Reign In Blood," so I won't introduce it here...

A strange move for the Los Angeles group, in fact, the songs would have definitely had more success if they had been included in the subsequent "Hell Awaits," but nevertheless the tracks contained here are not available on other records, except live where we find the first 2 songs in "Decade Of Aggression" (which, by the way, you will soon see reviewed by none other than me...).

In conclusion, I can only say that this work's only flaw is containing four songs, otherwise it would have been yet another masterpiece from that band that undoubtedly left an indelible mark in the history of music...