SEASONS IN THE ABYSS | “Let me out NOW!” That’s the little girl’s voice screaming for help at the end of ‘Dead Skin Mask’, track 5 (closing out side A when sides mattered) on Slayer’s 1990 album Seasons in the Abyss. It scared the living shit out of me. I was a sophomore in high school when I got it and had already become accustomed to rock and metal with satanic overtones that were so popular back then, but this was different. This was about Ed Gein—earthbound and real—and he’d worn the flesh of his victims. Very few records had made me feel like I shouldn’t had been listening to them. Like it was wrong. Like I was bearing witness to a violent crime and doing absolutely nothing to save its victim. A few years later when I got my license I would pop this cassette in the tape deck of my Jeep and take midnight drives down a particular dirt road canopied with trees. It was known for its local lore of satanic rituals and the urban legend of a teenager’s deadly car accident. Many favor Reign in Blood as Slayer’s crowning achievement but for me it’s second to Seasons in the Abyss, which aside from the haunting effect it had, is also the one I find most musically dynamic. Up until that point each album was a battering ram. This has peaks and valleys of death. Pictured above is the album artwork unfolded. It was perforated so that you could tear off the main image as a mini poster. The reverse contains album lyrics.