Unknown Soldier

Album
Fair Warning in many ways the find of the year for me, of course it’s an album I’d heard numerous times over the years, but it was an album that always failed to ignite any real excitement in me, so why the sudden change of heart? Well a number of metal listeners have often stated to me just what a treasure this album is in the Van Halen discography and if the competition hadn’t been so hot, it would certainly be an album worthy of a ‘top 10’ position or thereabouts. Van Halen on their first two albums Van Halen and Van Halen II had seen them lay down the yardstick of what defined American heavy metal at this time. But it was on their third album Women and Children First, where the band began to really challenge their early commercial flavoured metal sound with its flamboyant party feel, with a more serious sounding brand of metal. Sure from the word go Eddie Van Halen had orchestrated what metal riffs should be all about, but the music of the band often contained humorous overtones largely due to David Lee Roth’s vocal style, but on Women and Children First, the band had now challenged their own metal ethos with an album that was their heaviest to date. This album had contained both elements of speed metal and proto-thrash that were all set within a darker context, but in all this they still managed to keep the Van Halen flair of the first two albums fully intact (see reviews for these first three albums) So by the time of Fair Warning the band were now looking to push the envelope out even further and here we have probably the band’s boldest ever statement as a band. Album opener “Mean Street” has that typical VH sound and is a heavy grinding opener with the colossal riffs of Eddie Van Halen present, but on previous albums where a song like this would’ve been highlighted by the band’s party tendencies, this song now remains gritty from start to finish and doesn’t give into commercial overtones and this style continues in the same vein on the second track “Dirty Movies” which has some great drumming by Alex Van Halen. There is still plenty of humour around the place as well and it can be found on tracks like “Sinner’s Swing!” and “Unchained” and this second song also happens to be both the most melodic but yet grittiest track on the album! The most interesting track on the album is probably the dark disco overtones of “Push Comes to Shove” and then there is the surprise of “Sunday Afternoon in the Park” an instrumental with murky synths, and this leads into the gooey album closer “One Foot Out the Door”. At just 31 minutes this is Van Halen without commercial niceties, without obvious singles and without their typical humour, and what humour that can be found is most definitely wrapped up in a grinding heavy blanket of metal. Much like the previous Women and Children First album, I wouldn’t call Fair Warning a classic album as such, but its probably the most experimental and certainly the darkest release form the David Lee Roth era of the band.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

Album
Much like Cirith Ungol’s Frost and Fire or Manilla Road’s Invasion, Newcastle born and bred Venom adopted this same down-in-the-dingy-basement approach in recording their debut album Welcome to Hell. The one thing all these bands had in common was their ‘DIY ethos’ and all put out albums that are considered primordial releases for the future extreme metal genres. But this is where the similarities between Venom and their two American counterparts end, as both Manilla Road and Cirith Ungol were somewhat backward looking in terms of their influences which were standard and progressive rock, whereas Venom adopted a far more potent and crueler overall sound and image. Musically Venom took their cue from the so-called satanic preachings of Black Sabbath and even more notably from the visceral approach of Motorhead, in fact if these two bands had got married and had a son, then Motorhead would’ve been the father and Black Sabbath the mother, with Venom of course being that devilspawn son! They weren’t finished there of course as Kiss probably would’ve been the godparents, as Venom had to get their macabre stage show from somewhere and Kiss were the perfect choice in that respect, as was the Witchfynde Give ‘em Hell album cover as well. Welcome to Hell was recorded in just three days for a miniscule budget and it sounded like it as well and the album was basically splatter metal right out of the gutter, which came across as a loud and menacing beast being played at breakneck speed! The production on the album was beyond bad and this was an aspect that future black metal bands would soon turn into a fine-art form several years later! Musically the songs were possibly there, as it usually took great amounts of concentration to follow them through the barrage of noise from the band and the loopy production. Another problem was that band members Cronos-bass/vocals, Mantas-guitar and Abaddon-drums were musicians of extremely limited ability and they made shamming look bloody cool, but it was also enough to turn any metal purists insane! Welcome to Hell is an album that says fuck off to musical conventions and instead just goes for the jugular like a screwed up Motorhead! Now personally I don’t really like the album song for song and I like better production than this as well (I’m not big on black metal for this reason) and therefore would hardly ever listen to this type of album. But what I do like is the album’s manic bestial flow from start to finish, something that the future Slayer would perfect on Reign in Blood. Overall Welcome to Hell is a unique listening experience for its time and if you can dig out the songs then that’s another bonus as well! Finally llittle did anybody know, that Welcome to Hell and its follow-up album Black Metal, would eventually go onto become two of the most influential metal albums of all time! As over these two albums, Venom would effectively rewrite the metal rulebook and in turn give birth to extreme metal, along with laying down and crystallising the complete criteria for the future sub-genres of thrash, death and most notably black metal. Indeed this really was welcome to hell as far as heavy metal was concerned!

Cronos- Bass/Vocals
Mantas- Guitar
Abaddon- Drums

Production- Keith Nichol

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

The Batlord

I have a feeling I'm gonna be using the "Boo this man!" gif when I see what albums you've chosen over Welcome to Hell. I love everything about Venom. The crappy songs. The crappy production. The crappy musicianship. The crappy vocals. The crappy lyrics. It shouldn't work at all, and yet it all somehow comes together and breeds greatness. I don't think it's possible to divorce all of that from its "manic, bestial flow". If the songwriting had more class, or if they could actually play, or if the production was more professional, or if the lyrics were more mature then the spell would be broken and you'd be left with something good but not great.

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William_the_Bloody

Wow, 14! I was expecting them to be in the top 5, although lyrically black metal has never turned my crank, musically this album is pretty groundbreaking. I have to agree with the Batlord on this one...you've gotta show more love for scuzzy low rent metal!

Moss

Fair warning is killer and anybody that says otherwise has not given it a fair listen. Nice review. Such a great album. "I like the way the little line runs up the back of her your stockings..." The intro to mean streets alone is worth the price of admission. There is a reason EVH is so revered and mean street is it"

Unknown Soldier

If Venom were a movie then they'd be classic 'B-Movie' material and rank as one of the worst b-movies ever, but like most crappy b-movies they're so bad that they actually end up being very good, as they've turned their crappiness into an art form just like Ed Wood did for example. So with this in mind I actually really enjoy listening to Venom now and again, but deep down I know their crappy limitations.

Actually most of the albums I've chosen over Venom with the exception of about four or five, I'd say you'd agree with based on your taste and I know some are albums that you actually like a lot.

Albums that are groundbreaking are usually groundbreaking in retrospect and Venom are no different really in that aspect, but where they differ from other groundbreaking bands, is that nearly all the known bands that they helped to inspire are far superior to them in nearly all aspects. What Venom have in their favour though is a big set of balls and on their first two albums they laid down the complete criteria for extreme metal, a template if you like that was essential for the growth of metal.

If my lists were just based on the most influential then they would've been no.1 on the list, but as I take so many other things into consideration with the largest factor being my own taste, Venom have lost out a lot in other areas which I've already mentioned and hell I like scuzzy metal and you can't get more scuzzy than Cirith Ungol.

Now that's a fair assessment. I've mentioned a few times how David Lee Roth's spoken voice just sounds so cool with its swagger (it does to me as a non-American anyway) and half the things he sings/speaks just couldn't be pulled off by my many others either.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

William_the_Bloody

Well I'm not a metal expert so I have to choose to pick my battles here lol, I'll just say that I find Cirith Ungol too Maiden sounding, while Venom is just awesome stripped down metal. There is a reason why everybody remembers the latter but not the former. VEEENNNNOMMMM! lol

(Hope you go a little easier on Darkthrone when you get to the 90's cheers.)

Unknown Soldier

Which is why Venom are actually quite a few places higher than Cirith Ungol

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

Album
Like fellow Geordies Venom, Raven were another band to appear on the fledgling Neat label, but whereas Venom gave us breakneck speed with dark malice, Raven were simply just speed merchants with a rough ‘n’ ready attitude. The band were a metal trio fronted by brothers John Gallagher-bass/vocals, Mark Gallagher-guitar and Rob ‘Wacko’ Hunter-drums. It always seems amazing just how many metal bands at this time had adopted a three man line-up along the lines of Motorhead and it just goes to show how influential Motorhead were at this time, not just in musical terms but also in both image and band personnel! Over the course of this journal I’ve often mentioned how this song and that song by bands such as Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and more recently from the likes of Motorhead and Saxon etc were largely responsible for what would become known as ‘Speed Metal’ which of course is metal played at a blistering pace usually by highly proficient musicians. But unlike its far meaner thrash brother, it was far less abrasive and relied more on melody than on hardcore and in many ways I’d actually call Raven’s debut the first bona fide speed metal album that incorporates everything essential about the sub-genre, the band though usually just referred to their own style though by the now redundant term of ‘Athletic Rock’. Every track except the acoustic shorty “39-40” qualifies as fully fledged speed metal or almost an speed metal track. Singles like “Hard Ride” and “Don’t Need Your Money” are good single choices and “Hell Patrol” is a real belter highlighted by the high notes of John Gallagher. The album essentials are probably “Over the Top” “For the Future” “Lambs to the Slaughter” “Tyrants of the Airways” and the vital title track “Rock Until You Drop” with its guitar and bass solos. Raven were all about being a good time speed metal band and this can be noted throughout most of the album’s songs, especially with their cover of the Sweet medley “Hellraiser/Action” which actually sounds like it could’ve been on the soundtrack for the Rocky Horror Show! The real crux of the matter though for many when it comes to Raven, are surely the vocals of John Gallagher whose ‘throttled sounding screams’ and not exactly a world away from Dave Mustaine and might not be to everybody’s taste. Overall Rock Until You Drop is a straight-forward NWOBHM album that just happens to be one of the first true speed metal albums out there and there is an extended version of the album which runs upto 57 minutes as well. Even though Raven fails to gain the same type of attention as the better known Motorhead and Venom, I’m pretty certain that a number of future speed and thrash metal bands took their cue from these early Raven albums. Finally Raven were just one of the many NWOBHM bands on the Newcastle based Neat label at this time (Neat pre-dates the even more expansive Metal Blade) and this was a label that was instrumental in the promotion of heavy metal in the UK, and was responsible for giving bands like Venom, Raven, Jaguar, Cloven Hoof and Tygers of Pan Tang amongst others their initial break, in fact the label was owned by the original vocalist of the Tygers of Pan Tang Jess Cox until he sold it in 1995.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

Just something I've noticed recently, though this could be the way you've been doing it all along: your reviews of albums are all one big paragraph, no formatting. I say this because if that's how you intend it, fine, but some people are put off by a big block of text: looks too much work. However I had problems with my last Babylon 5 writeup in that although I had formatted it, every time I went back to check it, it had all become one big block of text, and I had to redo it. About three times.

I don't know if that's happening here, I don't know if this is the way you expect it to be, but personally I think it looks a little clunky and if you are dong it deliberately I'd suggest breaking the article up into at least two paragraphs, looks tidier and less intimidating perhaps.

Just a friendly suggestion...

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018