I've held my tongue long enough. If you don't like this album then you simply don't get 80s thrash metal. That's okay but you should try to understand why Reign In Blood is a classic.
Like all 80s thrash it's a speedy mixture of NWOBHM and hardcore punk that was popular at the time. For the popular bands Slayer did it in one of the punkiest of ways and that's probably why you don't like the vocals. That's b/c Araya gives you only a monotonous scream. No melodics, no frills, not even on beat all the time. You have to appreciate that to like this album.
As for "interestingly sped up rock-n-roll" guitar solos, I counter that King's solos took them to a new level. For some reason, all of these bands had to stick guitar solos into all of their songs which was anathema for fans of hardcore. Some thrash bands pulled it off pretty well without lame theatrics but King just went wild and made guitar solos that had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the songs. As if a feral animal took control of the lead guitar for about twenty seconds.
Also, as has been said a trillion times, the Rubin production is great and really bridged the gap between metal and punk. For these reasons it deserves all of the praise it receives and, I repeat, if you don't like it then you simply don't understand or care about what was going on when it was made. It's fine if you don't, but everybody who understands and likes that stuff knows why the album rates highly.
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Like an arrow,
I was only passing through.
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