Local boys Minus Life have only time enough for four songs tonight, and they waste little time in storming through an intense set that includes live staples Dark Child of Hate and New Life Burning. They don’t quite hit their super-intense best, and Scott Moss’s voice seems a touch scratchy at times, but for a small knot of fans in the paved pit area at the front of the Riverstage, they delivered in spades.

The crowd swells and soon an impatient chant for Mastodon rings around the Riverstage amphitheatre. The band hits the stage, and the pointed beards and angular guitars of Troy Sanders and Brett Hinds make it seem as though they’re Nordic gods intent on taking us on a short trip to Ragnarok. Drawing from Leviathan and Blood Mountain, the guys live up to their reputation by pouring awesome amounts of speed, aggression and sweat into fiery renditions of The Wolf is Loose, Iron Tusk and Capillarian Crest. They save the best for last though – the intricate riffage of Colony of Birchmen, followed by the pounding rhythm of Blood and Thunder – rounds out a perfect performance.

The arrival of Slayer transforms the pit into something resembling an apocalyptic war zone. The opening notes of Darkness of Christ and Disciples blast out from the 82 massive speakers ringing the stage in six separate stacks, the kickdrum so dense it’s felt rather than heard, guitars squealling and screaming and, over it all, Tom Araya howling “God hates us all” like someone bereft. A visual feast adds to the sensory overload – bright, white pentacles projected starkly onto the walls behind and beside the stage while rapid-fire strobe lights overwhelm the senses. Flailing limbs collide and damp, sweating bodies slap hard against each other in the disorientating light-then-darkness.

War Ensemble is the first of three huge songs from Seasons in the Abyss tonight. And if the tempo was high before, it’s hitting overdrive now – thousands of fists and voices frenziedly working in time, revelling in the frenetic speed of guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman.

But we’re not destined for a set of hits and memories – songs from Christ Illusion are scattered liberally throughout. Cult, Eyes of the Insane and Supremecist stand up strongly paired against classics such as Mandatory Suicide or Seasons in the Abyss and prove that, for all their slow evolution through the years, Slayer are still, at heart, a thrash metal band.

Between songs, Araya looks for all the world like the proverbial cat who fell in the cream as he gazes out on a sea of black-shirted people engaged in worship. The pauses sometimes span long moments. The ungenerous might imply Slayer are getting old. Others might says it’s to allow the crowd to recover its collective senses after each blistering metal assault. And, indeed, as the ear-pummelling set progresses a steady trickle of limp, exhausted punters stumble out the back of the pit like war wounded from the front lines of battle.

From start to finish, it’s a near faultless performance, full of searing guitars, fast, shredding solos and pulsating drums. But it is marred by long periods where Araya’s vocals are irritatingly low in the mix. For a band of their stature, it’s strange for such an elementary problem to go uncorrected. Not that anyone else seems to mind – those at the front are too busy threshing their way to oblivion, while those on the hill headbang more sedately and cheer from a safe distance.

Eventually, the band brings things to a thrilling end, pulling a series of classic songs from the very top drawer. Postmorten and Silent Scream form a delicious entree before an eerie rendition of Dead Skin Mask sends fans into ecstasy. Ecstasy? That would leave nothing to describe the reception for Raining Blood. Thrash metal’s finest flog their instruments into submission while the pit heaves in one last moment of metal madness.

People aren’t leaving without dessert though, and after a short break Slayer return to dish out a couple more. The sonorous tones and sweet slow riffs of South of Heaven prove ideal for sustained headbanging and then the faithful erupt in a frenzy as Angel of Death concludes the night in appropriately thrashy fashion.