An odd mutant cross between Black Metal-era Venom and The Side 2s of the mighty Black Flag. MORE punk than Motorhead ( which is saying something right there! Motorhead were punk as fuck!) and MORE extreme than Venom. But once it was put to tape there was no stopping it. Especially Bark At The Moon (which is actually good commercial metal! So don't hate me Ozzy!). Those two albums changed everything in 1983 – dwarfing everything else released that year. Nowadays, it would be called Speed Metal(which I will touch on soon enough). Its closest facsimile is Metallica’s Kill 'Em All. It was something completely new and yet something that Slayer would immediately progress from with the Haunting The Chapel EP and then of course Hell Awaits. Show No Mercy is a unique entry in Slayer’s catalog. I did NOT take out my cassette copy of Bark At The Moon to show Paul. Killers-era Iron Maiden on speed (check out “Crionics” to see this transformative, critical piece highlighted) with a dose of Venom and hardcore. Anyways, He hit play and it was instant love. I used to go watch them at Battle Of The Bands shows at a nearby high school.
Paul was in a metal band with his older brother Art. He had a headphone splitter so we could both listen. Me & Paul Garfinkle were sharing headphones. We were riding to a jv basketball game at the very back of the bus. I’ll never forget the first time I heard it. And it all started here with Show No Mercy. In the mid to late 80s pretty much every extreme band wanted to be Slayer. The most important band in the entire history of extreme metal.