Slayer - Angel Of Death

Slayer - Angel Of Death - Meaning of the song

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