Angel of Death
Slayer, 1986, from Reign in Blood. Solo by Jeff Hanneman, Kerry King.
Hanneman and King swap chaotic, whammy-heavy solos, closer to noise than melody, perfectly matched to Reign in Blood.
Angel of Death opens Reign in Blood at a punishing pace, and its solos sound less like melodies than like alarms going off. Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King trade breaks built on frantic tremolo picking, atonal flurries and violent whammy-bar dives and squeals, often ignoring the underlying key altogether. That chaos is deliberate: the leads mirror the horror of the song's subject and the relentless riffing around them. Slayer showed that a solo in extreme metal could be about texture and shock rather than tune, an idea that echoed through death and black metal for years. Listen for the moment one player hands off to the other, and notice how differently each uses the whammy bar to twist the pitch.
Angel of Death by Slayer is ranked #290 in our consensus of 79 guitar-solo lists. The solo is played by Jeff Hanneman, Kerry King and the song was released in 1986. It appears on 2 lists, placing as high as #2 (Metal Hammer (Louder)).
In our lists
- The 25 Greatest Thrash Guitar Solos — #8
- Twin Guitars & Harmonies — #23
- Most Divisive — #3
- The Best Slayer Guitar Solos — #2
Sources
- Metal Hammer (Louder): The 10 best thrash metal solos ever — #2
- Magazyn Gitarzysta: 100 solówek wszech czasów [100 solos of all time] — #86
- DigitalDreamDoor: 200 Greatest Metal Guitar Solos — #100
- Digital Dream Door: 250 Greatest Rock Guitar Solos — #219
- Lefty Fretz: 53 Best Metal Guitar Solos Of All Time
Who played the guitar solo on Angel of Death?
Jeff Hanneman, Kerry King played the solo on Slayer's Angel of Death (1986).
Where does Angel of Death rank among the greatest guitar solos?
#290 in the GreatestSolos consensus of 79 published lists; it appears on 2 of them.