So you figure that the three members of Venom were sitting around a pub in the late 70s and watching both the punk scene and the rise of Motorhead in their native England and finally one of them exclaimed, "I got it! Let's use Motorhead's leftover musical ideas, except not nearly as accomplished as those fine prodigies, and sing songs about Satan! That'll surely upset parents everywhere, dadgum it!"

And so begins the silliness that is Venom. Welcome to Hell is indeed an apt title for the album as it is a torturous trip through exactly how bad music can get. If you thought Motorhead was raw and poorly produced, you ain't heard nothing yet. Venom's debut album sounded like it was recorded with cheap handheld tape decks, only at a distance of fifty feet. The trio's music and songwriting was hardly able to overcome the awful production as it sounded like every riff Motorhead rejected. (And yes, I'm fixating on Motorhead for comparisons because in 1981, there weren't too many other bands playing metal music this ugly and stripped down to the barest essentials. But unfortunately, Venom stripped away things to the point that the essentials were also forgotten.) The trio played with only the rudimentary knowledge of what the hell they could do with their instruments, relying on the shock value of songs about Satan to cast attention away from the fact that they really were amateurs. Great showmen, indeed, but still amateurs. There are occasional decent moments in the racket and din, but c'mon, who wants to bother finding them?

As I've said before, I do appreciate Venom's existence and for helping inspire scores of bands far more talented then they. Any band who inspired Bathory, Celtic Frost, Sodom and countless others at least deserves a tip of the hat and maybe even a hearty handshake. But at the same time, there really is little need to actually hear Venom.

Review by John Chedsey

Review date: 08/2000

Back to top 

My question is exactly how seriously should be take Venom and the album that gave an entire genre (and subsequently a "lifestyle") its birth. On one hand, the band's music is obviously amateurish, lacking depth and very much British tongue-in-cheek humor. But on the other hand - and more significantly - this is the band that inspired countless other metal acts such as Bathory on down the line to today's current crop of extreme metal. Without Venom, these bands may have been quite different. With an album like Black Metal, one must retain that perspective that by itself, it's downright hilarious and so over the top that it can't be taken seriously. Yet much of the music I enjoy today is a direct descendant of this particular trio. Frankly I have no need to really listen to this sort of thing aside from giving the album a respectful nod. With the band obviously still trying really learn their instruments (and it is debatable if they ever succeeded) and the songs being so basic that Motorhead seems like Mozart in comparison, Black Metal is a larf all the way through. The lyrics, especially in the case of "Teacher's Pet", are just downright amusing. For the most part, Venom is the Monty Python of metal who just happened to accidently spawn a much more interesting scene and style than they could ever have dreamed.

Review by John Chedsey

Review date: 02/2000

Back to top 

Incidentally, before you get too far into this review, it needs to be noted that this version of Venom is not the classic Venom whose metal parody act accidentally spurred an entire genre, first influencing bands such as Sodom, Celtic Frost, and Bathory, all of whom influenced today's current black and death metal scenes. This particular Venom actually sounds like they're taking themselves seriously, which may be a problem, depending on your point of view. Replacing singer Cronos with the ominous sounding The Demolition Man (who helpfully bursts through a brick wall on the back cover), Venom charges through this disc like a serious thundering heavy metal animal with little trace of the British cheese that their earlier work displays. The title tracks, "Blackened are the Priests", "Megalomania", and "Into the Fire" are all excellent exercises in heavy thrash. Surely many will reject this as an inferior product, but they're actually missing out on a good metal album.

Review by John Chedsey

Review date: 07/1997

Back to top 

Easily one of the worst bands to ever wreak such dubious influence over two decades of metal, Venom is one band who you must consider the legacy and context before listening to the music. Frankly, the music is borderline awful to terrible. The Book of Armageddon (which served as Relativity's Book of Accounting as they put out several "best of" albums for many of the bands on the dying Combat label) compiles a handful of the older and most influential Venom tracks to remind and explain where much of today's black and death metal orginated. But for crying out loud, Venom was simply mediocre! Sigh. Well--check that--they were adorable doing it. Featuring all sorts of bad production, borderline musical incompetency by all three of the members, and of course Cronos' evil ranting, this whole collection is just goofy when heard in 1998. I suppose in the context of the early 80's, Venom was pushing an envelope or three. Fortunately, bands like Bathory and Celtic Frost took it to a new level and actually breathed fire into the beast.

Review by John Chedsey

Review date: 12/1998

Back to top