Venom - At War with Satan (1984)

"Let the joyous celebrations of Hell begin!"

It’s pretty amazing how this English trio of musical neophytes that ALWAYS went about their business in a tongue-in-cheek fashion accidentally gave birth to the most ideologically violent and extreme form of sonic emotional metal expressionism ever conceived. For it’s time, the Satanic slant to their music was indeed taboo, but Cronos, Mantas and Abaddon were never terribly serious about it in their private lives, and have publicly stated so many times in the past. A lot of "pro" magazines and even other fan 'zines regularly slag on Venom for being an obnoxiously overconfident lot with very little musical skill, but therein lies their appeal - the first four albums are dirty, ugly and fun romps of pure attitude.

Sure, our heavy metal heroes in Venom were hardly proficient at their chosen instruments, the production is crude and lo-fi and the songs lack any and basically all varieties of technical flair, but this preference would become the standard when Mayhem, Darkthrone and Burzum gave an everlasting identity to black metal in the 90's. Similarly to almost all other 80's extreme metal bands there’s simply something magical about Venom's deviant racket that’s made it enduring, but at the same time being completely hit or miss with most folks.

At War with Satan can best be described as Venom’s single attempt to escape the 'all testosterone/no skill' label they’d been stuck with after their first two albums. The title track is an admittedly impressive 20 minute long opus that takes up the entire side of the original LP; a concept piece in and of itself. That may seem excessive, but I can assure you, this thing rocks hard for it’s entire duration, and features elements that would never again be heard in their music (acoustic guitars, ambient breaks). Cronos’ lyrics for this beast read like an epic poem, with over a dozen well-written stanzas.

Satan's speed, our speed

'Rip Ride', as it’s name would imply, is a high-speed headbanger that harkens back to the 'Welcome to Hell' days where, 'Stand Up and Be Counted' is dedicated to their legions of fans, and quite the popular live track, I’m sure, while the comically titled, 'Aaaaaaarrghh' is a silly filler, with our heroes stumbling in on a hilariously distorted (pop?) group, whomping the bejesus outta them and then mindlessly abusing their instruments while yelling, cursing, and just generally making as much unpleasant noise as possible. Good times.

The album artwork is also rather amusingly a damn fine rip-off off the poster for the 1973 film, 'Satan's School for Girls,' which I happened to view recently. But, don't get excited, because its not that good of a movie, I mean what kind of Satanic movie doesn't have a nice big set of hot 70's babe titties in it? Yeah, this one, meh.

Furthermore, it’s extremely easy to see how Euronymous was influenced by 'At War with Satan,' since he absolutely lifted Mantas’ riffing style and guitar tone from this album (if you don’t believe me you'd best head back to 'Deathcrush' or 'Live in Leipzig' to see what I’m talking about).

Oh, I'd also have to suggest picking up the '02 re-release since there's a number of bonus tracks (pushing the total up to 15) as well as some decent liner notes and additional photos.

'At War with Satan' and Venom in general isn't for everyone, but if you ever wanted to trace black metal to basically its earliest roots you'd do well to acquaint yourself with the, "Gods rock `n' roll!"