One seriously heavy album, and were it not for "Reign in Blood", this would be the best of Slayers output along with the "Haunting The Chapel" EP. It was on this release that Slayer took a drastic turn away from their heavy metal roots and started along their (short lived) path to immortality. Beginning with the ominously evil sounding title track "Hell Awaits" (the very sound of hell itself plodding within your cranium as if it were some sort of infernal carnival ground), you could tell Slayer had stumbled upon something magic on this album...brutally heavy in the way that only good quality metal can be (fuck all that Cannibal Corpse crap - this is where it's at). "Kill Again" then starts up with some nice syncopated double bass drum play (something Lombardo would become world renown for) on the intro before cranking into it's secondary intro (Dissection fans take note - this is where the inspiration for "The Somberlain" album (along with Iron Maiden) came from) and finally the main body of the song - the chorus of the song doesn't really stand very well against the test of time, but the guitar work is still fresh and remains un-compromised. "At Dawn They Sleep" follows and is more in tune with the opening track in it's aura of evil - mostly mid-paced with a morbid feel, the guitar work really shines through, and Tom's vocals have a particularly venomous ring to them, further adding to the mystique of this track...I'm also a big fan of the plodding section that kicks in at about the 2:54 mark - it's one EVIL fucking mother of a riff (with some blasphemous lyrics to boot - always a good thing). The fourth track, "Praise Of Death" prances about in thrash territory, and as far as this sort of thing goes, is quite excellent...the chorus has a catchiness to it, and if this song was sped up a bit it wouldn't have been out of place on "Reign In Blood" - my favorite bit of the song of course is at the 2:54 mark, where once again they take down the tempo and produce something quite evil sounding (seems like I have a predisposition to this sort of thing). "Necrophiliac" continues along the same lines, and while I like the lyrics (being the sick fucker that I am), the song itself does little for me (with the exception of the guitar work which comes in at 1:15 and the vocal/guitar interplay during the final verse of the song) - this isn't to say it's a bad track, but compared to the rest of this album, it's lacking. "Crypts Of Eternity" begins with a plodding pace (YES!!!) and then quickly mutates into a particularly heavy "heavy metal" song - this is the closest they get to reproducing the style they had on their first two releases. It's a great track, but I feel it sounds somewhat out of place because of it's "melodic" touches. Finally, closing up the album we get "Hardening Of The Arteries", another heads down thrasher which doesn't really do much for me...that is, until 2:08 into the song, at which point it becomes (much like "At Dawn They Sleep") so EVIL and ominous that it defies description - a great way to end the album up.

Final analysis - essential listening. You should be mocking yourself if you don't already own this, 'coz I can assure you the rest of the us would...

© 1999 chorazaim