Review by Krys on January 6, 2005.

Why the hell would you need me to review this DVD? Isn’t over two decades of devastation, a firmly established classic status in the metal world and most importantly, the album focus of this release, Reign in Blood (undoubtedly one of the best and most influential metal albums ever), performed live in its entirety and with the original line-up not enough to pick this DVD? If not then I have nothing more to say to you, for the rest of us who already have it in our collections read the last two words of this review and move on with your lives.

Still Reigning is made up of three parts. The first section is the entire Reign in Blood release, their 28-minute benchmark album, played from start to finish and concluded by a theatrical downpour of blood during the closing track. I’ve listen to this album since 1986 and this piece still gave me chills. Amazing! Some might find a few signs of aging during the performance from our beloved quartet but over two decades of banging your head to this type of music who wouldn’t age? Don’t get me wrong here; this bunch still destroys punks 20 years younger with energy and dedication alone. Slayer by no means is just selling the performance; they relish every second of it.

The second part offers bonus material including live performances of Slayer classics such as "War Ensemble," "Hallowed Point," "Necrophiliac," "Mandatory Suicide," "Spill The Blood," and "South of Heaven.” The final section, a seventeen minute documentary called ‘Slayer in Their Own Words’ presents exclusive interviews with members of the band, their crew, fans and backstage footage. Even though this section is about past, present and future it focuses on Dave Lombardo's return to the fold and the performance of Reign in Blood, including the raining blood effect.

From technical standpoint the sound of the show is excellent and the only complaint I might have is the camera work that does not capture the full atmosphere of the show, but honestly until you see them live nothing will ever bring the excitement and full madness of their show onto the tape. If you’ve never seen this machine live do yourself a favor and jump into the pit, see if you’ll survive couple of tracks. Nothing, and I mean nothing, comes close to Slayer’s live shows and its atmosphere.

To sum it up in two words, because there’s no need to advertise this DVD any more: Metal Bible.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Review by Krys on January 6, 2005.

Why the hell would you need me to review this DVD? Isn’t over two decades of devastation, a firmly established classic status in the metal world and most importantly, the album focus of this release, Reign in Blood (undoubtedly one of the best and most influential metal albums ever), performed live in its entirety and with the original line-up not enough to pick this DVD? If not then I have nothing more to say to you, for the rest of us who already have it in our collections read the last two words of this review and move on with your lives.

Still Reigning is made up of three parts. The first section is the entire Reign in Blood release, their 28-minute benchmark album, played from start to finish and concluded by a theatrical downpour of blood during the closing track. I’ve listen to this album since 1986 and this piece still gave me chills. Amazing! Some might find a few signs of aging during the performance from our beloved quartet but over two decades of banging your head to this type of music who wouldn’t age? Don’t get me wrong here; this bunch still destroys punks 20 years younger with energy and dedication alone. Slayer by no means is just selling the performance; they relish every second of it.

The second part offers bonus material including live performances of Slayer classics such as "War Ensemble," "Hallowed Point," "Necrophiliac," "Mandatory Suicide," "Spill The Blood," and "South of Heaven.” The final section, a seventeen minute documentary called ‘Slayer in Their Own Words’ presents exclusive interviews with members of the band, their crew, fans and backstage footage. Even though this section is about past, present and future it focuses on Dave Lombardo's return to the fold and the performance of Reign in Blood, including the raining blood effect.

From technical standpoint the sound of the show is excellent and the only complaint I might have is the camera work that does not capture the full atmosphere of the show, but honestly until you see them live nothing will ever bring the excitement and full madness of their show onto the tape. If you’ve never seen this machine live do yourself a favor and jump into the pit, see if you’ll survive couple of tracks. Nothing, and I mean nothing, comes close to Slayer’s live shows and its atmosphere.

To sum it up in two words, because there’s no need to advertise this DVD any more: Metal Bible.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Review by Krys on January 6, 2005.

Why the hell would you need me to review this DVD? Isn’t over two decades of devastation, a firmly established classic status in the metal world and most importantly, the album focus of this release, Reign in Blood (undoubtedly one of the best and most influential metal albums ever), performed live in its entirety and with the original line-up not enough to pick this DVD? If not then I have nothing more to say to you, for the rest of us who already have it in our collections read the last two words of this review and move on with your lives.

Still Reigning is made up of three parts. The first section is the entire Reign in Blood release, their 28-minute benchmark album, played from start to finish and concluded by a theatrical downpour of blood during the closing track. I’ve listen to this album since 1986 and this piece still gave me chills. Amazing! Some might find a few signs of aging during the performance from our beloved quartet but over two decades of banging your head to this type of music who wouldn’t age? Don’t get me wrong here; this bunch still destroys punks 20 years younger with energy and dedication alone. Slayer by no means is just selling the performance; they relish every second of it.

The second part offers bonus material including live performances of Slayer classics such as "War Ensemble," "Hallowed Point," "Necrophiliac," "Mandatory Suicide," "Spill The Blood," and "South of Heaven.” The final section, a seventeen minute documentary called ‘Slayer in Their Own Words’ presents exclusive interviews with members of the band, their crew, fans and backstage footage. Even though this section is about past, present and future it focuses on Dave Lombardo's return to the fold and the performance of Reign in Blood, including the raining blood effect.

From technical standpoint the sound of the show is excellent and the only complaint I might have is the camera work that does not capture the full atmosphere of the show, but honestly until you see them live nothing will ever bring the excitement and full madness of their show onto the tape. If you’ve never seen this machine live do yourself a favor and jump into the pit, see if you’ll survive couple of tracks. Nothing, and I mean nothing, comes close to Slayer’s live shows and its atmosphere.

To sum it up in two words, because there’s no need to advertise this DVD any more: Metal Bible.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Review by Rosh on March 30, 2022.

There's a lot of metal releases still coming out that are musically faithful to styles long predating the sleek, overly clean production they're presented with. This might be a somewhat unfortunate fact, but it's hardly a fatal flaw considering a lot of it comes from established bands on big labels who can still make the music sound pretty natural. On the other hand, having the software skills and equipment to mix semi-pro sounding, but not quite, recordings at home, with little in the way of musical substance or quality, is pretty pointless. One would initially be perplexed as to why that's so common nowadays, why put in the effort to record something that mimicks the professional process when you're not only incapable of making it sound truly professional, but also incapable of writing decent songs.

That's just it, though. There's very little effort to any of it, as listening to something like Poisoned Ash reveals. This is apparently death/doom metal, but whereas modern greats like Hooded Menace, Temple Of Void, and Spectral Voice put emphasis on both the death and doom, this places little emphasis on either and relies too heavily on hokey layering and ambience that would bomb in any sort of live setting. The shells of riffs there are to be found here don't hit hard at all, it's almost all continuous chugging with a digitized and dry guitar tone under the contrived attempt at atmosphere, and then occasionally there's unmuted guitar notes that might conjure some Bolt Thrower or Asphyx riffs if they weren't played with such an evident lack of conviction. The actual picking patterns are mere noodles and do not cut through in any way as metal riffs are known to.

The vocals are a passable Martin Van Drunen-inspired yelp that actually does sound kind of tortured, which is definitely the best thing here, but it can't make up for the hollowness of the compositions or the airy guitar tone. The drum programming here is also some of the laziest and most distracting I've heard. I don't know what program was used to create these drum beats, but the sound is incessant ticking to the point where when an actual fill comes in, it sounds very different from a human playing drums, which is not what you want with programmed percussion. This also adds to the not-quite-professional sound of this EP I mentioned before; it sounds pretty awkward for the most part which derails the focus on atmosphere.

That's the thing with death/doom, too. It can be one of the most atmospheric styles of metal hands down with the right foundations - a steady riff bed, engaging songwriting, sinister performances, whereas Kybalion only has a type of self-insistent atmosphere that seems to think it's really captivating despite no moments on this release standing out anymore than the others. They should focus on writing memorable songs before heading back into their homemade studios.

Rating: 1.2 out of 10