Black Metal

by

Venom

Edit

I will always remember the fateful day when a school friend handed me Venom's very own "Black Metal" opus and suggested I give it a spin. With trepidation I placed the vinyl on my stereo and although the sound was harsh and brutal you knew you were listening to something exciting and new. It was strangely perverse yet deliciously addictive...plus your parents hated it which is a huge bonus for any teenager. You will never catch your Mommy singing anything on offer here whilst dusting the Wedgewood figurines. And here it is again repackaged, remastered and beefed up with extra trax looking as resplendant as the day it was spewed from the sooty depths of Hell. Embossed and glossy the horned one invites you to slip back the cover and enter Hades if you dare? After the grating intro of steel on steel (which had you checking your stylus for defects) Cronos invites you to join the band in the worship of "Black Metal". A rip roarer of a song with chainsaw guitars, out of control drums and wolverine vocals its obvious this band means serious harm to your health and general well being. "To Hell and Back" is next which demonstrates the quantum leap the band's songwriting has taken since their delightfully basic debut album. You can imagine yourself a stride some gargoyle demon in flight travelling through the depths of the infernos. "Buried Alive" with its all too realistic soil on coffin lid sound effects and the coffins all too alive inhabitant waking to find his very dark confines are all too real. A true triumph of a song which is still disturbing all these years later. "Raise the Dead" belts out next with great bursts of Mantas guitar work firing from the speakers like sparks from an anvil. Venom always had a sense of humour and it shows on "Teachers Pet" which is the most politically incorrect ditty you will ever hear. Suprising is the fact that it does not contain a Satanic reference at all, and equally suprising that it contains an eyebrow raising blues style passage of guitar work mid way. Side two is as strong containing great concept songs such as "Countess Bathory" and "Don't Burn The Witch" and great slabs of frenzy as "Leave Me In Hell" and "Heaven's On Fire". You may conjur the bearded one himself by playing "Sacrifice" so beware! The outro of "At War With Satan" wets the appetite for more mayhem next time around. The extra trax on offer include an assortment of 12" versions of singles released around the same time the highlight being the classic "Die Hard" with genuine hard man backing vocals. Also we are given a collection of radio sessions that loose some of the greatness of the originals in the translation but are still great to have for the admission cost. I've enjoyed re-aquainting myself with all three of these awesome re-issues so much that I am thinking of buying them again!

I had this album when I was 13 or 14, and at the time (1983-4), it was a very rebellious and extreme album. It still is (for the most part), but it's just not as good as I remembered. I still love the "Lay down your soul to the God's Rock and Roll!!" in Black Metal, and "S-A-C-R-I-F-I-C-E" is still cool, as are Countess Bathory, Teachers Pet, etc.

Although it states that it is "remastered," I remember the guitar being more prevalent on the original. On this copy, you can barely hear it. It seems as if the drums (particularly the bass drum) are entirely too loud. Whomever remixed this did a poor job. But there again, it may have always sounded this way, as 1983 didn't have the crisp, crunchy guitar sound yet (Metallica had just put out Kill Em All that year) that we all sort of take for granted today.

Anyways, it's still cool to have this album to pull out when I take a trip down memory lane, it's just not as pleasant as I remembered. I recommend buying a used copy.