Venom

Coming in at the end of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal – NWOBHM – movement, Venom created a new genre with their second album ‘Black Metal’ and are generally recognized as major influences on Black Metal, Thrash Metal and Extreme Metal.

This collection features three albums recorded after the classic band lineup broke up and left Anthony "Abaddon" Bray as the only band member. He recruited Tony Dolan (The Demolition Man) as bass and vocals and the two of them wrote a whole new set of material before Jeffrey "Mantas" Dunn and Al Barnes rejoined the band.
That was the lineup for the first album featured in this set ‘Prime Evil’ and it continued through ‘Temples Of Ice’. Barnes then left the band, to be replaced by Steve White (from Atomkraft) and this lineup produced the third album here ‘The Waste Lands’. The set also includes their EP ‘Tear Your Soul Apart’ on CD1.

What you get here is a fine presentation of the rebirth of a classic band, three albums plus of powerful metal that really show what the originators of a scene can produce.

Surprisingly, the material is well recorded and there is more subtlety in their music than you might imagine. Clever use of sounds that are definitely not in the thrash or extreme metal canon, keyboards that take the riffs to greater prominence and lyrics that can actually be heard – not the usual inchoate roar practiced by so many bands that don’t understand that words are the core of a ‘song’.

Of course, the speed and the sheer attack of their sound is not for everyone, but Venom are/were so much more than just a metal band – their music is just better than most of their contemporaries. The riffs are strong and the power and insistence of Bray’s drumming hammers at you like a personal assault.

An excellent set from a great band.