510. Venom - Black Metal (1982)
















Track Listing

1. Black Metal
2. To Hell and Back
3. Buried Alive
4. Raise the Dead
5. Teacher's Pet
6. Leave Me in Hell
7. Sacrifice
8. Heaven's on Fire
9. Countess Bathory
10. Don't Burn the Witch
11. At War with Satan

Review

This was awful. Ok it is an important album, it gave the name to the whole Black Metal genre. Now imagine Ozzie Osborne and Lemmy had a retarded child and this is what it would sound like. I know I am going to come up against some reader out there that fucking loves this, but I don't care.

The lyrics are actually quite funny, unfortunately it is in a quite unintended way and that just makes the album even sadder. And the "playing" that goes on here... they try to compensate for knowing only a couple of chords by playing it fast, but it really does not solve the problem as it makes the singer keep going on the same monotone.

This is a thoroughly shit album, none of it is smart, particularly innovative (Motorhead played it better, Black Sabbath wrote better lyrics) or even appealing in anyway. You will laugh at the lyrics especially if you get the occult references, seeing as they know fuck all about what they are singing about. Shit.

Track Highlights

1. Countess Bathory

Final Grade

4/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In 2005 it was voted the 68th best British album of all time by Kerrang! readers.

HAHAHAHAHAhahahaha

In his Black Flag tour diary, singer Henry Rollins wrote about a 1986 performance when Black Flag opened for Venom. He opines that Venom were hilarious, with mediocre playing and a stage performance focused on appearances rather than music; Rollins asserted that the musicians used portable fans to keep their hair flowing while on stage. Rollins wrote, "It was like seeing Spinal Tap ... I expected them to go into 'Sex Farm' at any second." Rollins writes that he and some tourmates drew magic marker pentagrams on their hands to flash at Venom and offer “Hail Satan” salutes. For their final number, Venom asked the audience to chant what Rollins thought was “Black Funky Metal”, which briefly made Rollins suspect that he had overlooked Venom's sense of humor, until he realized Venom was actually saying “Black Fucking Metal.” Venom reportedly laughed off Rollins’ comments saying "Henry didn't have the balls to speak to us back then, he hid backstage, but now he mouths off behind our backs. His band were useless and that's why he writes books now. He even got the date of the show wrong. Go write some more books and we'll keep making music."

Countess Bathory: