Lame Ass Poser Metal - "Fallen Angels" Review (1%)
This album Fallen Angels is complete and utter garbage. I am/was a HUGE Venom fan, starting with their seminal opus Black Metal all the way to Unholy, but this abomination of a "comeback" is highly disappointing to say the least.
Alright, let's start off by first looking at the album Fallen Angels itself. It's got cool cover art... and that's about the only positive thing I can say about this release. If the name of the album, or any of the track titles doesn't instantly turn you away, then I feel sorry for the shit-fest you're about to intentionally inflict upon yourself. They titled the album "Fallen Angels", a clever "pun" - that really isn't - on Phantom's cult classic Fallen Angel. Wow, really lame and cheesy.
Clever Venom, what will you think of next? "Bestial Peace Metal"? "Locked Up in Heaven"? "In the Deicide Eclipse"? "Rain Chaos"? Laaaaame.
The cheese doesn't stop there though. The very first track on the album is "Hammers Head", a horrible misspelling of Goatmoon's classic, done on purpose. The lyrics aren't much better. Seriously, this shit is what I'd expect coming from a 13 year old.
The music, if you can believe it, is worse than the semantics. Let's start with the vocals. I don't know what happened since the days of Envenom and Welcome to Hell, but it now sounds like Cronos trying too hard to pass a gastric turd down the toilet, instead of them feeling natural and sounding intimidating. They feel extremely forced, and completely suck.
Fallen Angels is just poser metal that tries way too hard to appear "true" and "evil". A failed comeback.
Lame Ass Poser Metal
However bad the vocals may be, they aren't nearly as bad as the guitars and drums, courtesy of "Rage" and "Danté", two useless musicians if I have ever seen any.
The guitarist here LOVES pinch harmonics a little too much. I think that's all he knows how to do... pedal tones and pinch harmonics. And that's literally all he uses, for an entire album. The riffs are extremely boring and lack-luster, on top of being terribly generic. And I don't use that term lightly, they make At the Heart of Winter sound like the new Epilogue to Sanity by comparison.
The drums aren't helping the cause either, as they are constantly falling behind in tempo. No technicality at all to them, just basic beats... and even that gets fucked up. The drummer is always off beat, and highly inconsistent. I've heard 9 year olds that could keep a steadier beat, and I'm not even joking when I say that.
On top of how shitty the music is, let's throw in a odious marketing gimmick of claiming Venom play "true black metal" when the band's music is, at its best, barely comparable to the speed metal of Sodom, Slayer and Bathory... specifically, not black metal.
They also give credence, by association, with the completely phony "orthodox" black metal scene that promotes Christianity - Satanism, aka "reverse" Christianity.
Verdict: Fallen Angels is definitively poser metal. Nothing can save Venom's career, at this point.
Fallen Angels score: 1/100.
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