682. Venom / Welcome to Hell. 1981. 4/5

In the last few weeks it has come to my attention that I may have missed a trick back in my late teenage years, something that when it comes to my music tastes I don't think happened too often. However, there are probably reasons why Venom slipped beneath my radar. Unless you were often frequenting specialist record stores in Australia, you would never find these albums, because the mainstream record stores would not have a bar of keeping such stuff. Of course, it's all different these days, what with the internet and online music stores and the ability to easily buy albums from overseas, but in the 1980's for us a lot of it was guesswork or becoming friendly with an overseas student who brought new music in your life. So in recent times I have done a lot of chasing down of bands from the early 80's that I had little knowledge of, and venom was on that list. this was the first album I bought, being their debut.

Reviewing this more than thirty years after its release is not easy. Because it's style is so familiar and recognisable, mainly because it so obviously inspired so many bands that came after them, I felt comfortable with the album from the first time I played it. It is different from most of the other NWOBHM bands of the time, most of whom looked for melodic guitars and more progressive elements in their music. This is heavier, generally faster, with a real emphasis on deeper and darker vocals and guitars. The production is only average, and there is little precision in any of the instruments (the myth has been raised that the band thought they were recording a demo when in fact it was what became Welcome to Hell), so it sometimes comes off as clunky and just a wall of noise rather than superb song recording. But in some ways that is the charm of the album. It's not perfect, and given that it was apparently all recorded in three days compared to some bands today taking two years to get every single note perfect... well, that's what is so different about music these days. But why would you want this to be any different? If you aren't as precise as Dream Theater when it come to your instruments, then you sure don't need to have high fidelity sound, and overall this has similar production values as other albums of the era.

The raucousness of "Son of Satan", the chugging guitar, rumbling bass and solid drum timekeeping of the title track "Welcome to Hell", the Motorhead-like rock 'n metal of "Poison", the awe-inspiring "Witching Hour" - the album has great songs coming at you one after the other. Like I said, it is great now, having only heard this album and band for the first time in the last six months. i can only imagine what it must have been like to the average punter when it was first released.

Had I discovered this album back in my high school years, I am willing to suggest that it could well be rated a whole lot higher than I have rated it today. Everything about it hits the right nerves in me when I listen to it, and if I had been playing it over and over for 25 or 30 years it would most likely be in a list of my all time classics. Despite this, Welcome to Hell is still a classic, a standard bearer to the thrash and black metal bands to come who obviously drew so much inspiration from it, and while it may seem a little tame in comparison to some of those bands today, that doesn't detract from how good this album was in the day, and still is in the present.