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THE REVIEW
When in that 1981 young metalheads went to stock up on LPs and found themselves facing a cover with a pentagram featuring a goat in the foreground, they would have been attracted and intrigued at the same time, but I don’t think they could have imagined the violence and blasphemous rawness etched by this trio from Newcastle, nor would they have imagined the importance this album would have for metal in the future. In the midst of the N.W.O.B.H.M., these 3 hooligans created a new sound, distant from any known music: it was black metal, it was the primitive cry of extreme metal, it was hell.
The fast-paced drumming, the dark, rude, and deafening guitar riffs, the raw bass, and Cronos's satanic, hoarse, and malevolent growl created a sound wall violent as a shovel blow to the face. The lyrics spoke of the devil, of hell in a direct manner without beating around the bush. These violent themes needed to rightly marry with the crude and grinding chaos of the songs, with this album (and with the following "Black Metal") the Venom planted the seeds not only for the birth of black metal but equally so for thrash metal, and in general, every extreme metal band born in the following years owes something to this seminal English trio.
No use in mentioning the songs, each one is a classic, in an infernal wall of flames, sulfur, and inverted crosses. Without realizing it, 3 rough guys pulled out with a primordial chaos and so much ignorance and fury a rotten and shocking sound entirely new, shouting "Welcome to Hell" to the young metalheads of those years and casting a black shadow on heavy metal that from that moment was never the same again.
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Summary by Bot
Venom's 'Welcome To Hell' shocked 1981 metalheads with its raw, violent sound and satanic themes. This album pioneered black metal, influencing thrash and extreme metal styles. Its primitive and chaotic energy marked a new era in heavy metal, laying foundational sounds that bands still draw from today.
Venom
Venom are an English heavy metal band formed in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1979, widely credited as a key influence on the development of extreme metal and for popularizing the term “black metal” via their 1982 album.25 Reviews
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By jigoro
The music, the music. It’s what counts the most, ALWAYS.
Inspirational for all time to come, fast, pleasant, and dark: Dave Mustaine’s favorite band sets conservative England ablaze with Heavy rhythms.
By thetrooper
"Venom really started to shake up all the contemporary heavy metal ... by exaggerating the various NWOBHM stylistic elements."
"Without a doubt, this album is a metal music classic, and partly thanks to it, today we can listen to various bands from the extreme hard’n’heavy area."
