Weirdly enough despite their infamy, Venom still do not get enough credit. They created this sound. The sound of all extreme metal. They made music that was willfully evil. Ugly. Brutal. And they did it on purpose. Were they best players. Hell no. But they were bloody, unhinged visionaries which is worth so much more. They were willing to tear down all that came before. They took Motorhead and Priest licks & riffs ripped them to shreds, chewed them apart, stretched them too thin and then spat them out from the grave. They were filthy, putrid, and vile. And they made sure that you knew they loved every minute of it. The guitar solos are some of the most influential in metal history, and you can hear their echos in Slayer’s early albums.
Nowadays their sound is called Black n’ Roll and you can still hear their influence on such killer bands as Midnight.
Influences: Motorhead. Motorhead. Motorhead. Priest. (Motorhead's Overkill is pretty much essential listening for this stuff.)
South Of The Dial #2: Proto-Proto-Death Metal (1980)
Ok. These guys are NOT Death Metal. AT ALL,.Like, not even close. They ARE Proto-Doom though. If you're into doom, especially the druggy, retro quasi-hippie stuff where Black Sabbath are spliced with all that late 60s psychedelic blues band stuff like Jethro Tull than this is your Holy Grail. Perhaps Ground Zero of that entire Doom Movement. Whereas bands like Saint Vitus took the hardcore punk approach to Sabbath's back catalog, band's like Witchfynde in 1980 and Witchcraft in the 2000s mined the psychedelic, hippie-ish elements. I love BOTH approaches and will be writing about Saint Vitus soon enough.
HOWEVER, as a prime NWOBHM band back in 1980, Witchfynde influenced Venom in other ways. Their satanic imagery and album cover was obviously massively influential on Venom (I mean just compare those two album covers. Case closed.) and thus the entire black and death movements that followed.
At any rate, just an incredibly killer NWOBHM, Proto-Doom release from 1980 that deserves to be in more charts and on more turntables. One of my favorite metal releases to be on from 1980.
Did u ever listen to that "Black" spot? 😉 Would love to hear your thoughts on it. I also highly recommend that Midnight album!
I'm still processing that new Sepultura album. Definitely really good!
So I finally listened to my black spot Welcome To Hell by Venom.
And I'm listening to it with a completely fresh mind (might be different to someone who grew up with the album) and these were my first impressions:
1. The production quality is awful: seems to be recorded in a basement
2. Nearly every track seems to be a rip-off from a Motörhead track (even Lemmy stated on No Sleep 'till Hammersmith: we're maybe not the best band in the world but we're definitely the fastest but they definitely knew how to play), of course especially on the riffing, the lyrics are not even close to the Lemmy themes 😈
3. The songwriting and lyrics are equally awful: the most understandable parts are where the singer is repeating the title over and over again (especially Welcome To Hell) and the solos are completely below par.
BUT, there is a real energy in this album and in some way nearly every track is an exiting listening experience. The only thing is: I wouldn't especially call this doom, death or extreme (except for the titles, the "timbre" of the singing and the fact that they wanted to be the best pupils in the class which sometimes is a bit ridiculous, cf the reverse singing at the start of In League With Satan) just a bunch of guys who can't play (some people say they hid it well and I haven't listened to their other albums) but had real fun with it and were able to convey that to the listeners of the album. Btw after listening to the outtakes on the bonus track version on my Apple Music version this is somewhat contradicted and you can hear what good tracks Angel Dust (aptly subtitled Lead Weight Version) and Live Like An Angel (7" version and now scarily close to Motörhead) are with some better production and some more more focused playing.
But the best track in my opinion is the last most atypical one: Red Light Fever.
So in short an album I have included in my top chart of 1981 but not at the highest ranks. And I will certainly also listen to their other albums.
The leap from the distorted, bludgeoned Motorhead riffs on Welcome To Hell to the truly blackened, frosty atmospherics of Black Metal is nothing short of stunning in hindsight. The Motorhead influences have been mostly shed to create something completely new. Everything blends & bleeds together to create a thunderous cloud. The songs are better too. "Buried Alive" is told from a convincing, harrowing, & surprisingly emotive first-person point of view of that would make Johnny Cash proud. And that's like the fourth best song on the album! Diverse, bold, and original ( & even fun at times : see "Teachers Pet") Black Metal was a huge leap forward for both Venom and extreme metal.
So I finally listened to my black spot Welcome To Hell by Venom.
And I'm listening to it with a completely fresh mind (might be different to someone who grew up with the album) and these were my first impressions:
1. The production quality is awful: seems to be recorded in a basement
2. Nearly every track seems to be a rip-off from a Motörhead track (even Lemmy stated on No Sleep 'till Hammersmith: we're maybe not the best band in the world but we're definitely the fastest but they definitely knew how to play), of course especially on the riffing, the lyrics are not even close to the Lemmy themes 😈
3. The songwriting and lyrics are equally awful: the most understandable parts are where the singer is repeating the title over and over again (especially Welcome To Hell) and the solos are completely below par.
A lot of those criticisms are actually what draws people to black metal. Low production quality and thus dirtier, grittier and more brutal sound. A lot of music that sounds similar to non-metal fans (not similar to Motorhead necessarily, but yeah). The barely understandable vocals, instruments and lyrics - they create a great chaotic atmosphere. And it's not just awful or lazy songwriting, most of the time bands WANT to sound that way. Same with solos. No one is claiming that Venom have the most melodic or well-crafted solo of all time, but their solos serve the greater purpose of music.
Just wanted to give my point of view 😄 _________________ Overall chart Fake overall chart
The Scorpions don't get nearly the respect and kudos they deserve. Easily one of the best metal bands of the 70s and early 80s they strung together SIX nearly essential albums starting with 1976's In Trance and ending with 1982's Blackout. The should be mentioned in the same hallowed breath as Judas Priest and Rainbow as one of the best metal band of the 70s. But they're not. All because their breakout album - Love At First Sting - has aged poorly and whiffs of a sell out. Not to mention, their follow-up Savage Amusement totally sucks eggs. Or so I heard. I've never even bother to listened to it. That's how much their reputation was tarnished! I couldn't even be bothered!
Anyways, over the next week, I'm going to "try" and rank their golden year albums. I put "try" in quotes because they are incredibly great, nearly impeccable albums, BUT none of them have the panache of say Judas Priest's Sad Wings Of Destiny or Rainbow's Rising. They are all just really, really great. BUT, which is the best?!?!
Have an opinion on this? Do you know what the best Scorpions albums is? Or, even better, have your own rankings? I'd love to hear it as I try to figure this puzzle out!
ps. Don't worry. I'm also still working on that Proto-Death list! 😄
The one and only final Scorpions album is the Live album Tokyo Tapes. In my opinion it contains the definitive version of nearly all my favorite Scorpions songs, in most cases completely different but much better than the versions on the original albums which is true for those four tracks on In Trance: Top Of The Bill, Dark Lady, Robot Man and the Title track: all personal favorites of mine.... on Tokyo Tapes.
The only weak point (apart from that one Japanese song they're playing) about Tokyo Tapes is the weak sound quality of the recording but if you play it sufficiently loud...
Last edited by dihansse on 03/07/2020 17:32; edited 1 time in total
My favorite regular album by The Scorpions is
Taken By Force (3 tracks on Tokyo Tapes: Steamrock Fever, We'll Burn The Sky and He's A Woman, She's A Man)
then
Lonesome Crow just because it's so much different from their other albums at the start of their career (and nothing on Tokyo Tapes)
then
Fly To The Rainbow (again I love the title track and Speedy's Coming on ...)
and then In Trance.
Virgin Killer follows a bit after that with Pictured Life, Backstage Queen and Polar Nights.
I'm not a big fan of their work in the eighties but Blackout is good.
mickilennialThe Most Trusted Name in NewsProfile Detroit
The Scorpions are interesting more for their journey than the highs of their albums, I think. They started out as a krautrock/prog-rock act and veered toward hard rock until they eventually found their interests peaking in heavy metal trappings. Great band. Love at least one record from each era they did.
There is another band from early 80s that some (like me!) would argue is every bit as important as Venom to the genesis of extreme metal. And that band would be Discharge and their notorious D-Beat. Their music was MORE extreme, MORE oppressive, and MORE angry than anything else out there. They made a veritable wall with their guitars, drums and of course their shouts & screams. They shouted & screamed about the bleakness of war. They shouted & screamed about poverty. They shouted & screamed about everything!
And they put out a shit ton of music during this period. In 1980, they put out three seminal EPS - Realities Of War, Fight Back , and Decontrol. In 1981, they released Never Again & Why. And in 1982, they released their most "popular work", the LP Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing. All of it is Uncompromising. Uncommercial. And downright Ugly.
Their music is so bleak & oppressive (& a bit monotonous truth be told) that despite their brilliance and my love for hardcore, I have a hard time making it past five or six continuous tracks. it's just too much. BUT, in those small 15 minute doses (which makes the EPs perfect), this is some of the the greatest extreme music out there. And its influence is beyond measure.
mickilennialThe Most Trusted Name in NewsProfile Detroit
Discharge was the natural evolution of several punk movements, Motorhead's influence on non-contemporary (at the time) rock music, and a healthy dose of "man this world really sucks and we don't like it". Directly influenced a lot of thrash outfits by my measure.
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