"Possibly the heaviest record ever allowed in the shops for public consumption
," said Geoff Barton in Sounds upon the release of 'Welcome To Hell' in the black
winter of 1981. And Venom's debut is terrifying, still.
In the first half of the Eighties, Venom cut their three greatest
albums - 'Welcome To Hell', 'Black Metal' and 'At War With Satan' -
as a power trio in the Motorhead mould. Songwriting is credited
to Lant, Dunn and Bray, but the Geordie boys are better known
as Cronos (bulldozer bass and vocals), Mantas (chainsaw
guitar dives) and Abaddon (drums and nuclear warheads).
Mantas and Abaddon met at a Judas Priest gig and formed
Venom as a four-piece with a bass player who later quit
to wed and a singer who quickly grew disgruntled when
his back garden was used as a testing ground for the band's
stage pyrotechnics. Enter Cronos, whose sepulchral bass -
"the pumping black heart of Venom" - and ogrish roar
transformed Venom into "the musical equivalent to the Earth
splitting asunder and revealing a filthy, gaping maw
to the Kingdom Below." This image, and from the Sounds
review, is an apt one: 'Welcome To Hell' is heavy with
diabolism, albeit as crude as Venom's brutal speed metal
. Cronos is no Aleister Crowley. Explaning the band's satanic bent
, Cronos said in '81, "Satan is power and Venom is power so
we write about Satan." 'In league With Satan' - incredibly, a single -
is the darkest of these eleven songs, it's chorus a thunderous
incantation of the damned. As a prelude to this track, Cronos'
voice is run backwards, echoing the demon within little
Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Elsewhere, Cronos feeds on unsafe
sex ('Poison') and drugs ('Angel Dust'). The latter tune features
on the New Wave OF British Heavy Metal compilation
put together by Lars Ulrich, drummer with Metallica, who
frequently opened for Venom in their early days. Both as a
part of the NWOBHM and as precursors of thrash, Venom
were as influential as any British metal band of their era,
Diamond Head and Iron Maiden included.
Welcome To Hell. Welcome to Venom's nightmare.
Paul Elliott, Kerrang!
