"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.
- 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.
- 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".
- Greatest Hits Album: Starting in the early 90's, lots of them are released between every album.
- Harsh Vocals: While they certainly don't sound that harsh by modern standards, they're probably the Trope Codifier for the consistent use of harsh vocals as the main singing style in most extreme metal.
- Heavy Meta: "Black Metal", "Too Loud (For the Crowd)".
- Hot for Student: Their raunchier songs "Teacher's Pet" and "Skool Daze" share this theme.
- I Am the Band: At one point in the late eighties, drummer Abaddon was the only original member. Nowadays, Cronos has taken that position.
- Instrumentals: "Mayhem with Mercy" from Welcome to Hell, "Wing and a Prayer" from Possessed.
- Intercourse with You: "Poison", "Red Light Fever", "Teacher's Pet", "Voyeur", "Skool Daze", "Playtime".
- Lead Bassist: Cronos is Types B and C.
- Lighter and Softer: Mantas' first solo album, which was more melodic offering and featured syntherizers.
- Their album Calm Before the Storm can also qualify, as the Satanic lyrics were heavily downplayed. The album also has a slightly more melodic sound, compared to their previous albums.
- Magical Native American: Manitou
- Metal Scream: Cronos's vocals are a type 3, though they're not quite as abrasive as subsequent bands to use the style.
- Nightmare Dreams: "Nightmare", both the song and its music video.
- Oop North: Interviews reveal unmistakably Geordie accents.
- Power Trio: Except during the first half of the 90s.
- Rock Me, Asmodeus!: Arguable Trope Maker for Heavy Metal as a whole (There were others before them, like Black Sabbath and AC/DC, that sang about the devil, but they were nowhere near as enthusiastic about it).
- Rock Trio: The band has had this lineup for the vast majority of their existence, the exception being the 1989-1992 period where they had two guitarists.
- Stage Names: Venom made them a staple for the Black Metal genre.
- Start My Own: Singer Cronos and guitarist Mantas both had their own solo projects. Mantas is currently leading a band called Venom Inc., which continues the sounds of Venom's Prime Evil era.
- Thrash Metal: They are frequently named as the very first thrash metal band.
- Three Chords and the Truth: The band members had very little musical experience when they started off, and it shows.
- Title by Number: "Thirteen", the thirteenth track of Resurrection.
- To Hell and Back: The name and theme of track 2 of Black Metal.
- Ur-Example: Many people believe Welcome to Hell to be the world's first Thrash Metal album.
- The band itself was this for the First Wave of Black Metal and, as a result, of Black Metal as a whole.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: Song titles "Skool Daze" and "Krackin' Up".