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Venom - Metal Black review



Reviewer:
6.0

160 users:
6.87
Band: Venom
Album: Metal Black
Release date: March 2006


01. Antechrist
02. Burn In Hell
03. House Of Pain
04. Death & Dying
05. Regé Satanas
06. Darkest Realm
07. A Good Day To Die
08. Assassin
09. Lucifer Rising
10. Blessed Dead
11. Hours Of Darkness
12. Sleep When I'm Dead
13. Maleficarvm
14. Metal Black

Venom's new release is bound to make old fans of the band quite happy; however, for the layman or merely curious, it will be a fairly mediocre and boring thrash album. Although the music here is very brutal and outright destructive, the repetitive songwriting makes it hard to enjoy for more that three or four songs at a time.

Those familiar with Venom's previous album Resurrection will feel right at home here. Although the lineup has changed yet again, the band still exploits the same musical ideas - Motorhead inspired thrash metal with production that reminds me of death metal. Indeed, Metal Black sounds as thundering as if it was Behemoth or Vader recording it, with great emphasis being given to crushing drum beats. Together with the heavy compositions, this gives extremely powerful results on such tracks as "Death And Dying", "Assasin" and "Sleep When I'm Dead". Unfortunately, unlike the previous release, on Metal Black there are no detours into other metal styles and the heavy artillery can get rather tedious after a while. In small doses it's very good but almost intolerable as a whole.

With all this said, Metal Black is still an acceptable release from these distinguished veterans. It could be much better but for old fans it will be a good enough excuse to wear those torn Venom t-shirts again and headbang like crazy.





Written on 27.06.2006 by With Metal Storm since 2002, jupitreas has been subjecting the masses to his reviews for quite a while now. He lives in Warsaw, Poland, where he does his best to avoid prosecution for being so cool.


Comments

Comments: 4   Visited by: 140 users
31.05.2007 - 02:56
Yumos Muraticus
Account deleted
I agree as a whole this album is boring as hell, though I think most of the songs are quite good in their own right. I would suggest people try and find the 'Antechrist' single and save themselves some money, as that has the essence of this album boiled down to two songs: 'Antechrist' and 'Metal Black'. The first song is classic old-school Venom while the latter is more inline with the brutal end of the thrash spectrum. That just about sums up the ingredients of this album.
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31.05.2007 - 06:57
Rating: 7
Dangerboner
Lactation Cnslt
I like this album, but I think it would have been way better if they took out tracks 10-13 (unless I'm remembering incorrectly). This album is too long for its own good.
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04.06.2007 - 08:16
Rating: 8
Doc G.
Full Grown Hoser
Written by Dangerboner on 31.05.2007 at 06:57

I like this album, but I think it would have been way better if they took out tracks 10-13 (unless I'm remembering incorrectly). This album is too long for its own good.

Thats wierd, because 'Hours Of Darkness' was the first song that really grabbed me on that album, and 'The Blessed Dead' has a pretty sweet solo. 'Maleficarvm', 'Death & Dying', and 'Assassin' I found were the only not so good songs. Otherwise I loved this album.
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"I got a lot of really good ideas, problem is, most of them suck."
- George Carlin
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11.08.2008 - 06:26
Uirapuru
Liver Failure
the four first songs are extremly boring, the album gets better with Rege Satanas and Darkest Realm. After these, the tracks 7, 8, 9 and 10 (specially 8. Assassin) are horrible.
The best song is by far ''House of Darkness''. I would give this album an 6 too, it is, like jupitreas write: acceptable.
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member of the true crusade against old school heavy metal, early 80s thrash, NWOBHM, traditional doom, first and second wave black metal, old school death metal, US power metal, 70s prog rock and atmospheric doomsludgestoner. o/
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