Kim Neely of "Rolling Stone" dismissed the album as "genuinely offensive satanic drivel". However, the magazine would later rank the album 47th on their 2017 "100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time" list. Slayer's official biography states: "The new sounds disappointed some of the band's fans who were more accustomed to the style of earlier releases." Michael Roberts of Westworld Online said this was due to some of the numbers moving "at the sludgier speed of Black Sabbath". Araya commented that the "album was a late bloomer—it wasn't really received well, but it kind of grew on everybody later". Decibel inducted "South of Heaven" into the Decibel Magazine Hall of Fame in January 2013. Due to Jeff Hanneman's passing in May of the same year, "South of Heaven" would be the second and final classic Slayer album to receive an induction into Decibel's Hall of Fame.