Hell Awaits (40th Anniversary Edition)

Independent shop in BallardDirections

Available from Light in the Attic Records when we last checked, in the last two days. Sold from the shop’s own store; the price there is the one that counts.

“It’s the record where Slayer became Slayer.” That’s what Kerry King says about Hell Awaits. And he knows of what he speaks. As the band’s guitarist, co-songwriter and co-lyricist, he was in the trenches with vocalist/bassist Tom Araya, guitarist Jeff Hanneman (R.I.P.) and drummer Dave Lombardo, creating what has become one of heavy metal’s greatest albums. A significant departure from Slayer’s 1983 debut, Show No Mercy—and every Slayer album that came after it—Hell Awaits is both an outlier and