This song is about Josef Mengele (The Angel Of Death), a doctor at Aushwitz who performed gruesome experiments on prisoners during the Holocaust. Many people who don't fully understand metal or Slayer have branded them Neo-Nazis and Satanists, but the song was written by guitarist Jeff Hanneman because he has an interest in World War II. His father landed on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944.
"Angel of Death" has become one of Slayer's signature songs and a classic of the thrash metal genre. It is included in all of their live albums and band-produced DVDs. It also appears in the soundtrack to many films, including Gremlins 2, Jackass: The Movie, and the 2005 documentary Soundtrack to War.
Rick Rubin took a different approach to producing this track in order to get a very clean sound. Since Slayer plays very fast, Rubin left the reverb off to keep it from turning to mush. He also boosted the drums, which kept the guitars at bay. He explained :
"Dave Lombardo is this incredible, unbelievably great drummer. One thing that we did was make the drums louder. The nature of distorted electric guitars is that they sound loud regardless of how loud they are. Whereas drums, because it's a natural instrument, depending on how loud they are in the mix really changes that feeling of how hard they're being hit. If you're in a room with the drums and somebody's hitting them hard, they're much louder. So, psychologically, by making the drums louder, it made everything seem louder."
Angel Of Death - Lyrics
Auschwitz, the meaning of pain
The way that I want you to die
Slow death, immense decay
Showers that cleanse you of your life
Forced in
Like cattle
You run
Stripped of
Your life's worth
Human mice, for the Angel of Death
Four hundred thousand more to die
Angel of Death
Monarch to the kingdom of the dead
Sadistic, surgeon of demise
Sadist of the noblest blood
Destroying, without mercy
To benefit the Aryan race
Surgery, with no anesthesia
Feel the knife pierce you intensely
Inferior, no use to mankind
Strapped down screaming out to die
Angel of Death
Monarch to the kingdom of the dead
Infamous butcher,
Angel of Death
Pumped with fluid, inside your brain
Pressure in your skull begins pushing through your eyes
Burning flesh, drips away
Test of heat burns your skin, your mind starts to boil
Frigid cold, cracks your limbs
How long can you last
In this frozen water burial?
Sewn together, joining heads
Just a matter of time
'Til you rip yourselves apart
Millions laid out in their
Crowded tombs
Sickening ways to achieve
The holocaust
Seas of blood, bury life
Smell your death as it burns
Deep inside of you
Abacinate, eyes that bleed
Praying for the end of
Your wide awake nightmare
Wings of pain, reach out for you
His face of death staring down,
Your blood running cold
Injecting cells, dying eyes
Feeding on the screams of
The mutants he's creating
Pathetic harmless victims
Left to die
Rancid Angel of Death
Flying free
Angel of Death
Monarch to the kingdom of the dead
Infamous butcher,
Angel of Death
Angel of Death
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