Soundtrack to the Apocalypse [DELUXE BOX SET] + NTSC DVD [CD+DVD, Limited Edition]

The biggest mystery to me is why bands ever bother to include material in box-sets that is already available elsewhere – surely the only people going to be spending such a large amount of money on a box set are going to be those hardcore fans who already own all the albums, so what’s the point of padding this set out with tracks lifted from Slayers previous albums? As such the majority of the first two CDs is pointless padding that you’ll play once and never again. The only mild ‘rarities’ on the first CD that you might not already own (depending on what pressing of the original album releases you own) are the B-Sides Aggressive Perfector and the remix of Criminally Insane. CD 2 at least has the benefit of 8 worthwhile ‘non-album’ tracks (though as these have all previously been released either on soundtrack compilations or as bonus tracks you may already own a few) – highlights here include Slayers team up with Ice T on Disorder and the cover of Suicidal Tendencies’ Memories of Tomorrow, though inevitably the fact that the majority of the remaining songs are bonus track album offcuts means they are hardly prime Slayer material.

What should be the highlight of the set, the ‘Previously Unreleased’ material that makes up the 3rd CD, actually turns out to be rather disappointing.... Genuinely interesting material include the early live track Ice Titan (an early version of Altar of Sacrifice), band practices of The Antichrist and Fight Till Death recorded in Tom Araya’s garage, and Jeff Hanneman’s instrumental demos of Raining Blood and South of Heaven, both of which are very different to the final versions, and Atari Teenage Riots sampling of the band for No Remorse (though as this is taken from another soundtrack it doesn’t really qualify as ‘previously unreleased’). The rest of the tracks are just live tracks recorded at various points in the bands career and aren’t particularly interesting (who cares that the version of Angel of Death here was one of their first performances of the song – it sounds exactly the same as every other time they’ve played it!). The DVD is interesting in terms of historical footage, but contains little material of sufficient sound and picture quality that you’ll watch it more than once. The bonus live CD is well recorded, but the interest of hearing how newly-returned drummer Dave Lombardo copes with the newer material is dampened by the fact that only two recent Slayer songs are performed, with the rest of the set being tracks already familiar from the Decade of Aggression live album, with only Tom Araya losing it with the security being of interest.

There’s a nice booklet, backstage pass, banner, etc – but ultimately there’s about 1 CD and 1 DVD’s worth of genuinely worthwhile material here for the confirmed Slayer fan – the rest is just padding to justify the price. For completists only. Read more ›