Boxset Review: Venom - Blackened Priests
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Taking cues from Motörhead of how to wring the fastest, loudest and most obnoxious sound out of a three-piece line-up, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne’s most rambunctious sons, Venom, hit the ground running with their 1981 debut record, Welcome to Hell, following that with the legendary Black Metal, and completing the unholy trinity with At War With Satan in 1984.
The recording line up of Cronos, Mantas and Abaddon would have one last hurrah on Possessed in 1985, with Mantas being absent from the fifth record, Calm Before the Storm, replaced by Mike Hickey and James Clare, who also added keyboards to Venom’s new sound, that was more Swords and Sorcery than Satanism.
It was an album that saw the end of Venom, with all barring Abaddon exiting to form the Cronos self-titled solo project. Due to some wheeling and dealing, Abaddon managed to get a record deal with Under One Flag and recruited Atomkraft bassist, Tony Dolan – The Demolition Man – a Newcastle native into the fold, before convincing Mantas to return, along with Al Barnes, who’d previously worked with Mantas on his solo project.
This line up would go onto record two full lengths and an EP, before Al left, then one more album before the scent of green brought the classic line-up back together. It’s these four records that Cherry Red have curated together under the moniker Blackened Priests for a walk down one of the lesser considered avenues of the Venom discography.
In October 1989 this new line-up released the band’s sixth album, Prime Evil - the first disc of this set - reversing the direction of Clam Before the Storm and returning to a more aggressive and immediate sound. Out of the gate and this one sounds like the Venom of old, airs and graces of Calm eschewed for a for belligerent, thrashing vibe. The opening title track introduced the Demolition Man’s presence as signifying a return to the roots of the band.
Parasite rips along, Blackened are the Priests proves Venom haven’t had a conversion and are as sacrilegious as ever they were, while Carnivorous and Skeletal Dance blast with late-Eighties thrashing intent. It’s clearly Venom, the speed metal and dark humour still present, despite the change in personnel, Prime Evil is a roaring record that course-corrects the previous album’s abandonment of their core sound.
School Daze is a salacious sequel to Black Metal’s Teacher’s Pet, and the re-record of Welcome to Hell’s Live Like an Angel.. Die Like a Devil, available only on the CD version at the time, allows the listener to make a direct comparison between the iterations of the band. Curiously, a cover of Sabbath’s Megalomania is included, given the Venom treatment, and represented as a compressed version at a little over five-minutes in length. Bear in mind the Sabotage version is almost double the running time.
Included on Prime Evil’s disc is the Tear Your Soul Apart EP from1990, a sort of addendum to the album, featuring live versions of Angel Dust, Burstin’ Out and a cover of Priest’s Hellbent for Leather; along with previously unheard The Ark and Civilised, plus the Prime Evil track School Daze. Interesting, though not essential, it’s half-a-dozen songs that gives fans a look behind the Venom curtain.
Disc Two is the 1991 album, Temples of Ice, which I still have on original cassette from back in the day. Once again, the four-piece comprised of Abaddon, Mantas, Demolition Man, and our Al, and contained ten speed metal thrashers, though the tempo isn’t quite as high as its predecessor. Tribes opens with the comment: “Oh shit”; Even in Heaven is peppered with quiet passages, as Trinity MCMXLV 0530 rumbles along with the weight of its atomic subject matter. In Memory of (Paul Miller 1964 – 1990) has an earworm chorus and Faerie Tale continues the record more refined compositions.
Other than the trio of Playtime, Acid and Arachnid, which looks back to the band’s speed metal roots, Temples of Ice is far more a heavy metal record when compared to Prime Evil; the cover of Deep Purple’s Speed King fits into the overall Venom ethos, and the epic, closing title track cycles through ambient passages and momentous blasts.
Objectively, Temples… is possible the weakest of the three albums included in Blackened Priests; subjectively, I still love it as much today as I did in 1991.
Another year and another album as 1992 saw The Waste Lands – its title inspired by the modernist classic poem by T.S. Eliot. Al had departed – presumably to do Barnes-related things (for we are a busy peoples) - replaced by Steve White and VXS on keyboards and sound effects.
Those effects are soon heard on opener Cursed, with its eastern charms and wide, epic feel, though with an earworm chorus. I’m Paralysed brings us into more familiar territory, as Black Legions feels more heavy or thrash than speed metal. Riddle of Steel and Kissing the Beast (the album’s original title) ups the tempo, but on average the BMP is within acceptable tolerances.
It’s The Waste Lands closing trio of tunes that see the band departing from their usual modus operandi and, strangely sees them adopting a Second Wave Black Metal aesthetic as part of Shadow King’s conclusion, carrying that grim filth through the whole of the doomy darkness of Wolverine and finally into ambient bleakness of Clarisse.
Listening to them back-to-back and these Venom albums show a band, already deep into their careers, but with the impetus to further develop. You couldn’t accuse this era of the band of resting on laurels and milking former glories, and it would have been interesting to see where this iteration of Venom would have taken their sound.
As it was, the original line-up was offered coin to reform, and the result was 1997’s Cast in Stone album. As for the Abaddon / Mantas / Demolition Man era: they would regroup for Mpire of Evil’s three releases between 2011 and 2013; and again as Venom Inc, who’ve so far issued a couple of albums and are still active on the live circuit where, Blackened are the Priests, Skeletal Dance and Parasite still regularly find their way into the live set. Even got Temples of Ice itself, this year.
Blackened Priests is a great little package to help you remember how much further Venom existed beyond the original three albums, and a reminder that, back when Grunge was flooding the airways, there were still bands working and developing to keep Metal alive.
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