Articles with the Tag Venom

Metal Monday: spandex and the devil

'Eavy Metal, video
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Moving along to the “V” in our Heavy Metal alphabet, two bands spring to mind that are almost as different from each other as you can get within the metal genre: Van Halen and Venom. Van Halen, the American band of Dutch origin was the first big Hair Metal band, making metal mainstream, while Venom was the founding band of the Black Metal subgenre, which revels in satanism and shocking the bourgeoisie. Both are bands I like a couple of songs quite a lot of, while the rest of their oeuvre leaves me cold.

So, which songs do you think about when Van Halen is mentioned? No you pervs, not “Hot for Teacher” but these two:

Jump:



And “Running with the Devil”:



Venom has never been a, well, a very good band; it’s more the sort of band you put on to shock your mother.

Calvin and Hobbes

Yet the band does have a certain charm and attraction, as shown here in “Welcome to Hell”:



“Countess Bathory”:



Metal Monday: Easter Celebration Blasphemy edition

Music, video
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Heavy metal and Christianity don’t generally mix, though there are some pale imitations of metal bands that call themselves Christian — like every Christian imitation of a secular idea, they’re shit. In fact, whole subgenres have sprung up revolving around the hatred for Christianity or the joy of being a satanist. A lot of this is of course playacting, or just done to shock the bourgeoisie, but trust the Norwegians to have made it all real: the rise of Black Metal as a seperate genre in the early nineties saw a spate of church burnings, threats against more mainstream metal bands as well as at least one suicide and one murder. All this didn’t necessarily improve the music….

Venom – Welcome to Hell



Entombed – Left Hand Path



Mayhem – De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas — at the time of this album’s release, the lead singer had suicided and the guitarist had been murdered by the lead singer of a rival black metal band.



Nuclear Assault – Hang the Pope



Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath:



Happy Easter!