Venom offer a surprisingly fresh new album
When I got this CD and first held it in my hands I really did not know what to think. Venom, I knew, were and are highly influential on many of my favourite artists. I also however had doubts; the name 'Metal Black' (referencing their 80's classic 'Black Metal') suggested a retread or stagnation of fan-pleasing styles, with little to offer the new listener such as I. Luckily, this was not so...
From opener 'Antechrist' to the closing title-track 'Metal Black' this CD was a surprising pleasure to listen to, from its old-school artwork to its oh-so-clever name, I really expected little more from this album than a re-tread of retro styles which would appeal purely to fans for the nostalgia value, I was however very pleasantly surprised in the consistent high quality of the album. The real highlight of 'Metal Black' comes in the form of the third track 'House Of Pain' which mixes rolling drums and crunchily heavy guitars and admittedly cheesy lyrics inviting us to "Come to the House of Pain", this song simply fits together perfectly. Admittedly, it does nothing ambitious or truly new in its 5 minutes, but what it does it certainly does well. There aren't really any tracks that stand out as disappointing or low points, and the only real criticism that can be made is in the third quarter the pace of the album drags just a little bit too much and becomes more tedious than truly exciting like it should be. Aside from this Venom truly do serve up a nice slab of heavy metal pleasure for the listener.
One assumption, which I admit I myself made, that because the band spawned such extreme genres such as death or black metal, they would therefore use extreme and harsh growled vocals that we see in those genres. Quite the contrary, the vocals of original front man Cronos with their Newcastle tones remind the listener more of Lemmy than Ihsahn! Similarly in terms of the music on offer, we can see the blast beats of death and black metal here, the guitar styles of thrash there, but overall we get a classic heavy metal sound that is hard to pigeonhole, as befits a band who have been influential in so many different scenes.
Overall this is a successful CD, Venom manage to justify their continued relevance and importance to the Metal genre whilst also making thoroughly entertaining classic heavy metal. Whether viewed simply as an album on its own, or viewed in light of Venom's influence on many modern (and more popular) genres, 'Metal Black' is a success.