Album review : VENOM – Live From The Hammersmith Odeon (CD/DVD Deluxe Digipak)

Cherry Red [Release date : 27.10.23]

Formed in England’s industrial North East in 1979, there was none heavier, none more extreme and indeed none more influential in the heavy metal genre than Venom.

The band’s reputation was born out of the brutality and intensity of their visceral sound, released from its cage on the debut album, Welcome To Hell, in 1981.

The volatility of the music’s punk/metal chemistry fast filtered out into the worlds of Metallica, Motorhead and others, simultaneously funnelling a thousand hardcore bands into the world of Death Metal and Thrash Metal.

Four albums on, the band, Abaddon, Cronos and Mantas lived out the musical nightmare of their anti establishment, anti mainstream message on stage at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1985.

It’s captured here on CD and DVD (in a Deluxe Digipak) by Cherry Red’s expert team of archivists , who might just have opened the gates to hell and let out the thrash and death metal hordes with this explosive setlist.

It’s drawn from the band’s 1981 debut, 1982’s Black Metal and 1985’s Possessed. Plus a handful of the early singles, most notably ‘Seven Gates Of Hell’ and ‘Warhead’.

‘Buried Alive’ and ‘Don’t Bury The Witch’ are key tracks. Guitar and bass fuse together in an inelegant chainsaw ballet. The drums sound like cardboard boxes, but really huge cardboard boxes, built to take a pummelling. It’s a primitive sound, but that’s the point.

In the live forum, these tightly structured songs, packed with electrifying dynamic shifts, (plus perhaps ‘Witching Hour’ and ‘Nightmare’), are perfectly pitched to spread the Death Metal Gospel.

Maybe the devil has all the best songs, after all. ****

Review by Brian McGowan

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections

Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)