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His riffs were so powerful that "Raining Blood" became one of the most played tracks in metal history, despite being the opposite of a commercial song
by Cristiano VC
The death of Jeff Hanneman, guitarist and co-founder of Slayer , saddened all of us heavy metal fans. And when analyzing Jeff's legacy, there is a deeper and sadder meaning: metal has lost one of its best composers.
Of the original members, Jeff is the one whose loss seems, at first glance, the easiest for Slayer to replace. Tom Araya is the voice and face of the band; a show with any other frontman is unimaginable. Kerry King is the guitarist who appears most often and seems to have been trying to be the "band leader" lately. He's the one who speaks most on behalf of the band, embracing an anti-religion crusade, perhaps in an attempt to recover the band's coherence, "tainted" by Tom's Catholicism. Dave Lombardo is considered by many to be the best drummer in the genre, and his absence divides the band's fans. Jeff has been appearing much less than King lately, and the band has even been touring without him.
"Slayer's sound is one of the most important and representative legacies of all Heavy Metal."
However, Jeff was primarily responsible for creating Slayer's sound. From the EP "Haunting the Chapel" to their fourth studio album, "South of Heaven," Jeff didn't just participate in the creation of four songs. He wrote the majority, and probably the best, of the band's music, being the sole composer of melodies such as those in "Angel of Death," "Postmortem," "Raining Blood," "Die by the Sword," "South of Heaven," "War Ensemble," "Dead Skin Mask," "Seasons in the Abyss," "213," "Bitter Peace," "Point," "Disciple," "God Send Death," among many others.
The sound of Slayer is one of the most important and representative legacies of all Heavy Metal. What hasn't been said about the intensity of albums like Reign in Blood, the raw riffs and chaotic solos of the King/Hanneman duo, and Dave's absolutely precise drumming? Slayer built an absolutely unmistakable sonic identity. They were the first band to break away from the fast but melodic sound of the "New Wave of British Heavy Metal" bands, just as British bands broke away from the blues elements of 70s hard rock. They significantly influenced many of the Thrash, Death, and Black Metal bands that came after, yet still sound just as heavy as those latter groups. Slayer's music doesn't need artifice, like lowering the tuning – take a riff and play it on an acoustic guitar, and the melody will still sound undeniably heavy.
The band always wrote the music before the lyrics, and the vast majority of songs began with a riff by Jeff. And these riffs were so powerful that a song like "Raining Blood" became one of the most played tracks in the history of Metal, even though it's the opposite of what makes a song commercial: it doesn't have a chorus, rhymes or repeating verses, and of course, it's atonal and begins and ends in long periods of infernal "noise".
In an interview with ESP, Jeff states that he hates "happy songs" and gets bored when people sing about "love and optimism," as it bores him. Nothing better translates what Slayer is as the opposite of happy and boring songs.
We lost Jeff prematurely, like Chuck and Dimebag before him. Legends like Iommi, Hetfield, and Mustaine still live on. The world needs more guys like them, with their unique contributions not only to metal, but to music as a whole.
*This text was written by a Wikimate and does not necessarily represent the opinions of the site's authors.
