Venom – Metal Black

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impulse buy

Sanctuary Records
Produced by Conrad Lant

It’s been no less than six years since Venom’s last album, Resurrection, and they’re apparently trying to return to their roots, switching the words from the title to debut album Black Metal and bringing back guitarist Mykvs, who played on the Calm Before The Storm album.

Unfortunately, this disc instantly gets off to a bad start as it’s quickly apparent that it suffers from the worst mix I’ve ever heard. There’s at least twice as much bass as their should be, and that’s a conservative estimate. Couple this with the opening brace of utterly terrible drum-as-fast-as-we-can drivel, and by the time House of Pain comes round I’m already in a bad mood. This third song is the first signs of reproducing the same level of interesting riffs and melodies heard on Resurrection, but after its promising start, it never manages to go anywhere and after five minutes of the same riff over and over again, it has well and truly out-stayed its welcome. And there’s still way too much bass.

Death & Dying, apart from having a mind-numbing riff and awful lyrics, demonstrates yet another flaw in the mix. With more thrash-by-numbers stuff from drummer Antton we discover that the snare drums is mixed way too high as well, so all you can actually pick out through the bludgeoning and monotonous guitar and bass is the snare and bass drums. Tom Belton, who is responsible for the appalling mix, needs castrating with cheese-wire.

In actual fact, there’s barely a good lyric on the disc, and the subject matter is tedious as well. Over the fourteen songs we have: Satan, Hell, Pain, Death, Satan, Metal, Death, Killing, Satan, Death, Killing, Death, Satan, Metal. Inspiring. The only aspect of the album that is consistently excellent is Mkyvs’ soloing, which is nothing less than stunning from start to finish and effortlessly cuts through the rest of the nonsense.

Elsewhere Good Day To Die, although fairly formulaic, is a good fist-pumping track, as is Assassin, but the latter is again ruined by the ridiculously high level of bass. Hours of Darkness is the stand-out track, with a great riff and two very emotive solos. Other than that it’s alright, but not a patch on Resurrection or Cast In Stone (now available together as a three-disc budget box-set with a bonus live CD, in case you don’t have them yet). Sleep When I’m Dead sounds like one of the less-interesting, but still good tracks from Cast In Stone, but with a much better solo, and title track Metal Black is the tedious black-metal-roar I was expecting. Maleficarvn repeats the same offence as House of Pain – it starts well but goes nowhere.

After the last two albums, this is largely disappointing and I won’t be going back to it too often. At times I can barely believe this is the same band, and I certainly can’t believe this is the result of six years of work. Two truly great tracks out of fourteen simply doesn’t cut it.

“ monotonous ”

Tracklist: Antechrist / Burn In Hell / House of Pain / Death And Dying / Rege Satanas / Darkest Realm / Good Day To Die / Assassin / Lucifer Rising / Blessed Dead / Hours of Darkness / Sleep When I’m Dead / Maleficarvn / Metal Black

Written by Andy Lye
More: Albums, Black Metal, Venom