Doppelgangers: Slayer

  

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Yeah, before our Slayer became a worldwide sensation, there were these pesky upstarts from Texas, who was pretty close to be the one and only. And they were like a reverse twin of our Slayer. First and foremost, despite satan appearing on their EP, the music is very ear-candy sweet, in vein of Power Metal. REALLY Melodic Power Metal with an annoying high pitched vocals.

As you can see from above, the band was forced to add S.A. as a prefix (or else they would be slapped with a big fat lawsuit), so people wouldn't confuse the two and accidentally buy the wrong Slayer. And that was a good thing, as some dissatisfied customer might have recreated the cover using one of the musicians as target (my guess would be the vocalist). Jokes aside, after multiple brews and good mood, their only album kinda grew on me, and I even purchased it (consciously). Because as much as I enjoy taking a jab at this incarnation of Slayer, what you're about to see below was hardly worth remembering.

You see, there was even a third American Slayer, only this time from Arizona, and they released a 6-song album "Dangerous Appetite" from 1982:

And while one shouldn't expect too much from a Hard Rock band (borderlining on Heavy Metal), and not everyone has to growl about hell, war and death, but singing about blondes in red, or... candy canes is a little too much. Yuup.

If you don't have enough already, there was another Slayer, this time from Japan, who only scored a split release in 1985, with other Trad Metal bands. I admit that I didn't bother to check it out. Who knows, maybe it's good? And last but not least, not one, but two UK Slayers, both (kinda) were part of the NWOBHM movement. First one was from Rochdale, and they released an actually cool little satanic single "I want your life" in 1983. Afterwards they quickly modified their name to Dragonslayer and recorded material which later was compiled by High Roller. The second one, from Lichfield, was initially called Aslan, and they had a tape from 1980, which has never surfaced widely, and year later a VHS with their live performance, this time as... yeah, Slayer, which you can watch below:

And that was it from them (thank god).

Obviously, there is only one and true, canonical SLAYER, and in case you need a hint, it's the one who shows no mercy, and proudly reigns in blood. And that's the way it should be.