A Black Metal Trauma - "Envenom" Review (91%)
If you like authentically raw bands as well as extreme metal, it's really not that difficult to be a fan of the British institution called Venom.
With Envenom, the war veterans of black metal have finally proven their ability to walk the thin line between unabashed harshness and appropriate musical development. They do not release the same album again and again.
Without affronting their followers, there is in Envenom the necessary quantum of development that you would expect from a band as notorious as Venom, without falling into the traps of artistic simplicity and repackaging their previous work.
Envenom is a document of devastation like Venom have never produced prior to this.
In terms of lyrics, Marduk repeatedly hammers the satanic/blasphemous formula that black metal is known for, thus I can't fairly speak of innovative boundlessness. And yet, the profound esoteric dimension of the subject justifies this way of proceeding.
Envenom is truly the album where Venom decides to play real black metal.
If -you like raw black metal, you must listen to this album at once.
A Black Metal Trauma
Which leads us to the very thing that defines a heavy metal album, be it black metal or otherwise : the riffs. There are loads and loads of them.
Gone is the time of strumming a single open chord like on their debut album Welcome to Hell. Venom has apparently learned how to play true metal music, and they do it to perfection.
From the opener's teeth kicking blastfest, to the incredibly epic tones of "Rape the Priest", there is simply a ton of spiraling riffs that just seem to pop out of nowhere, in addition to a very melodic lead that appears on some songs (the title track "Envenom" and the track "Vicious Poison Dripping From the Needle" come to mind).
As mentioned, the guitars also add a melodic touch. Just give "Rape the Priest" or "Demons Fucked and Unleashed From Hell" a chance. Of course, the combination of thunderous blast-beats and obscure guitar lines is a well-established strength of the black metal genre. These core attributes of the genre therefore naturally appear as the driving forces behind Envenom.
This is, after all, a black metal album. And a pretty epic one.
A word about the cover tracks.
The last two songs on Envenom are covers taken from Antekhrist's album Légions Anticatholiques. This proves that not only does Venom know how to play black metal, they also know what black metal is supposed to mean.
These covers, while in themselves not executed in a particularly spectacular fashion, are nonetheless a great addition to an epic black metal album.
Envenom is pure black metal trauma. You will not walk away unscathed from its darkness.
You have been warned.
Envenom score: 91/100.
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