Venom

There was a time when vinyl records had to be played backwards to reveal unsettling satanic messages, when occult puppet-masters like Charles Manson pulled the strings of flower-power and surf artists, when guitarists were fascinated by the esoteric theories of Aleister Crowley, and when gangs of English freaks hailed the Devil as a means of liberation from the shackles of bourgeois life. In short, there were people who took Satan terribly seriously. Fortunately, in 1981, three degenerates from Newcastle came to the rescue of poor old Satan, smothered as he was by such pretentious, pseudo-intellectual attention. Fond of fun things like beer, girls and Motorhead, they took their arsenal of inverted crosses, chains and chalices brimming with virgin blood and finally turned Satanism into a thrilling piece of showmanship, as much a child of The Rocky Horror Picture Show as of Alice Cooper's stage shows and Hammer horror films.

Anyone talking about Venom starts with the visual spectacle, and I'm not going to be the exception. Because, in the end, it was the trio's grotesque, cartoonish theatrics that caught the attention of thousands of kids who, just like fans of the Velvet Underground - though in even greater numbers - decided to pick up an instrument to imitate their demonic idols. But, of course, it's not just about image, since it's rare to find a band in history (and not just metal history, but rock history tout court) that proved to be so influential and seminal. Even more remarkable when you consider that they only made three records worth caring about, released between 1981 and 1984, and that, really, the first one alone would have been enough to change the history of heavy metal forever.

Although, in hindsight, the fame of sacred monsters like Iron Maiden and Metallica is unreachable, Venom's importance is arguably greater than that of those aforementioned heavyweights. Marrying Motorhead's crashing hard rock with punk's ferocity (probably more out of necessity than genuine interest, given the trio's rather approximate playing), they were the true inventors of thrash metal, well ahead of the Bay Area bands: the aforementioned four horsemen owe them practically everything - and Slayer even more so. As well as being the godfathers of black metal, they'll stand not just as an iconographic touchstone but as the chief inspiration for pioneers Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, Bathory and Mayhem. It's no coincidence that even the first incarnation of Death took its name from the band's guitarist (Mantas). And that's without even mentioning the countless cult bands (like Milan's Bulldozer or Japan's Sabbat) who started out from the Venom template before carving out their own identity.

Not bad for three young lads who loved singing the praises of the Enemy's triumph, of alcoholic and psychotropic excess, and of unprotected sex, ideally with your own teacher.

It all begins with "Welcome To Hell", a record as raw as it is powerful (unheard-of for the standards of the time, and still packing a punch today). And damn good fun, too!

The opening assault of "Sons Of Satan" is the kind that leaves you dishevelled: the model is clearly Lemmy's band, but the approach is more like carpet-bombing. Nothing had ever sounded so ugly and chaotic before, and Cronos's "rat-in-the-throat" vocals provide the perfect commentary for the trip through the tunnel of horrors (not the real kind - we're closer to a proto-Captain Spaulding here) that the whole record takes us on. The title track boasts a riff as simple as it is epic and effective, in the best tradition of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, a movement within which Venom acted as the loose cannons. But the album's true masterpieces are the tracks that invent thrash: "Live Like An Angel", the heart-pounding "Angel Dust" and, above all, the immense "Witchin' Hour", one of those blood-soaked, violent, hyper-speed wonders capable of turning any kid into a metalhead (and indeed, it's a song that's been covered countless times, most notably by Slayer and Mayhem).

The only let-ups come courtesy of the brief instrumental "Mayhem With Mercy" (what else could it be called?!) and the tribal "In League With Satan" (inspired by "Take On The World" and "United" by Judas Priest). Closing things out is the devastating ode to flesh "Red Light Fever", long and diseased like a "Sister Ray" (to quote Tommaso Franci) with pornography standing in for heroin.

To many, it must have seemed like a joke: if the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal had been born as hard-rock lovers' reaction against punk's sloppiness (even though Iron Maiden, Saxon & co. could no longer ignore punk), Venom threw all of that out the window, butchering every form of virtuosity on the altar of immediacy. Squarely-built metal songs played with punk swagger: that was the simple, brilliant recipe that made these three Englishmen's fortune, musically speaking.

The following year, the opus II, "Black Metal", repeated the formula with a touch more craft and a touch less filth - it's another masterpiece, but the midnight-movie charm of "Welcome To Hell" still makes it the preferred one.

To these masters of “do it yourself,” both in music and in image, the worst disservice one could do them was to take the second aspect seriously while underestimating the first - which is exactly what has regularly happened: on one hand, even within metal circles themselves, the supposed “sloppiness” of their output was for years excessively stigmatized (in the name of a widespread devotion to sterile virtuosity), while on the other hand, far too many of their fans - whether through youthful foolishness (Scandinavian blackster types) or congenital stupidity (Glenn Benton) - genuinely believed it was possible to summon the Devil by playing heavy metal. Had it happened to Venom, at most they'd have dragged him off for a pint at the pub.

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14/04/2013