11. VENOM : WELCOME TO HELL (1981) - NEAT RECORDS
The grandfathers of black metal! Don't be fooled by the terrible production quality of this album - it is a must listen to anyone who appreciates good metal music. Although Venom were just having fun with a theme like satanism, people thought that their music contained subliminal messages and encouraged violence!! Of course, Venom used this to their advantage and gained even more attention and in a way, created a whole new genre of music!
This album has an immense impact of the metal genre! Although at times the music feels simple, repetitive and downright dirty, you cannot deny the influence it has had on black, thrash, speed and others type of metal ever since. There are 11 songs on this album and you can see they take a straight and narrow approach to songwriting. Venom adopted the theatrical influences of Kiss and used satanic and occult references in most of their lyrics as a gimmick.
Their performance as a unit often sounded clumsy and under-rehearsed. The bulldozer like bass always seemed to over power the chainsaw like guitars, which had a very high treble setting to begin with. The drums always sounded like they were being played on cardboard boxes and the timing seemed a bit off. One can't help but like the songs on "Welcome To Hell". "In League with Satan" slows everything down a notch, and it's here that you can more clearly make out everything that's transpiring on Welcome to Hell. It might sound like a buzzkill to some listeners, but I've always liked the song and though it's a bit more repetitive than anything else on the album, it at least breaks up the pace of the album right before the final track, "Red Light Fever" allows the album to finish properly as the guitar dive bombs descend the final traces of the record into total chaos.
Listening to the lyrics and the musicianship makes one almost laugh since it is three guys trying to sound serious. But in retrospect, many of these songs are true classics of the genre.
Line Up : Conrad "Cronos" Lant – vocals, bass, Jeffrey "Mantas" Dunn – guitars, Tony "Abaddon" Bray – drums
PS : Tracks like "In Nomine Satanas","In League With Satan", "Welcome To Hell", "1000 Days In Sodom" and "Witching Hour" were all covered by bands on the "Tribute To Venom" release.
The grandfathers of black metal! Don't be fooled by the terrible production quality of this album - it is a must listen to anyone who appreciates good metal music. Although Venom were just having fun with a theme like satanism, people thought that their music contained subliminal messages and encouraged violence!! Of course, Venom used this to their advantage and gained even more attention and in a way, created a whole new genre of music!
This album has an immense impact of the metal genre! Although at times the music feels simple, repetitive and downright dirty, you cannot deny the influence it has had on black, thrash, speed and others type of metal ever since. There are 11 songs on this album and you can see they take a straight and narrow approach to songwriting. Venom adopted the theatrical influences of Kiss and used satanic and occult references in most of their lyrics as a gimmick.
Their performance as a unit often sounded clumsy and under-rehearsed. The bulldozer like bass always seemed to over power the chainsaw like guitars, which had a very high treble setting to begin with. The drums always sounded like they were being played on cardboard boxes and the timing seemed a bit off. One can't help but like the songs on "Welcome To Hell". "In League with Satan" slows everything down a notch, and it's here that you can more clearly make out everything that's transpiring on Welcome to Hell. It might sound like a buzzkill to some listeners, but I've always liked the song and though it's a bit more repetitive than anything else on the album, it at least breaks up the pace of the album right before the final track, "Red Light Fever" allows the album to finish properly as the guitar dive bombs descend the final traces of the record into total chaos.
Listening to the lyrics and the musicianship makes one almost laugh since it is three guys trying to sound serious. But in retrospect, many of these songs are true classics of the genre.
Line Up : Conrad "Cronos" Lant – vocals, bass, Jeffrey "Mantas" Dunn – guitars, Tony "Abaddon" Bray – drums
PS : Tracks like "In Nomine Satanas","In League With Satan", "Welcome To Hell", "1000 Days In Sodom" and "Witching Hour" were all covered by bands on the "Tribute To Venom" release.
No comments:
Post a Comment