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Music / Venom (Band)
aka: Venom

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We are Venom!note 

"Lay down your souls to the gods rock `n' roll!"
"Black Metal"

Venom is a metal band from the United Kingdom. To try and stand out from the other artists, they were the first metal band to introduce a highly satanic image and lyrical approach, thus becoming the very first First Wave of Black Metal band. Their fast music was also very influential to the Thrash Metal genre. Despite helping launch two of the most prominent genres of metal today, even in their most popular years they were criticized by some for their deliberately simplified music and lack of technical ability. However, they made up for that with enthusiasm and good showmanship.


Discography

  • Welcome to Hell (1981)
  • Black Metal (1982)
  • At War With Satan (1983)
  • Possessed (1985)
  • Calm Before the Storm (1987, also known as Metal Punk and Beauty and the Beast)
  • Prime Evil (1989)
  • Temples of Ice (1991)
  • The Waste Lands (1992)
  • Cast in Stone (1997)
  • Resurrection (2000)
  • Metal Black (2006)
  • Hell (2008)
  • Fallen Angels (2011)
  • From the Very Depths (2015)
  • Storm the Gates (2018)

Tropes associated with the band:

  • Axe-Crazy: Schizo
  • Badass Native: "Manitou'' consists of every Native American cliche you can fit into three minutes and stanzas, gore galore, cool drums and eerie vocals.
  • Black Metal: Trope Makers/Trope Namers. However, their music is much closer to Thrash Metal.
    • Unbuilt Trope: For starters, they didn't take the Satanic themes seriously, unlike plenty of Black Metal bands to follow. Otherwise, Three Chords and the Truth and low sound quality are among the only things Venom and their modern successors have in common in terms of sound.
      • There's also the Harsh Vocals (Venom's vocals don't sound all that harsh today, but they must have compared to what else was big in Heavy Metal at the time) and the noisy, trebly guitar sound. But they're sill a LOT less intense than anything considered Black Metal today.
      • The "dirtiness" of the riffing and general punkishness of the sound also proved to be very, very influential to crust punk and arguably helped shape the genre more than even Motorhead, Crass, and Discharge.
  • Blood Bath: The song "Countess Bathory" from Black Metal is obviously about the Trope Maker, Elizabeth Báthory, and makes mention of her bathing in blood.
  • Buried Alive: Black Metal has a song with the same title and theme.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Played for Laughs in the song In League With Satan.
  • Chainsaw Good: "Black Metal" kicks off with a sound of a chainsaw grinding on metal.
  • Cover Version: They have covered "Megalomania" and "Speed King".
  • Darker and Edgier: Venom was the first band to use heavily dark and satanic themes, compared to the other bands back in the day.
  • Dramatic Wind: Black Flag singer Henry Rollins claims that band used portable fans to keep their hair flowing during their stage performances.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Black Metal had "preview version" of "At War With Satan".
  • Epic Rocking: "At War With Satan", which clocks at over 19 minutes. Also "Cursed" and "Damned & Destroyed".

Alternative Title(s): Venom

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