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██▌ Artist...: Venom ░▐██▌
░▐██ Album....: Sons of Satan: Rare and Unreleased ░██▌░
▓▐██ Year.....: 2020 ▓▐██▓
▓▐██ Rel.Date.: 2020-12-08 ░▐██▓
▐██ Genre....: Heavy Metal ██▌░
░ ██▌ Label....: BMG ██▌
▐██ Source...: CD ▐██
░▐██▌ Type.....: Album ▐██▌░
▓▄████ Quality..: VBR, 44.1kHz, Joint Stereo ████▌░
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1. Angel Dust 4:44
2. Buried Alive 1:02
3. Raise the Dead 4:34
4. Red Light Fever 5:09
5. Venom 4:14
6. Sons of Satan 3:20
7. In League with Satan 3:25
8. Angel Dust 3:16
9. Live Like an Angel 5:09
10. Schizo 4:58
11. Venom 4:40
12. Angel Dust 3:09
13. Raise the Dead 3:28
14. Red Light Fever 4:46
15. At War with Satan 13:46
------
69:40
Tracks 1-5 recorded live at Westgate Road Church Hall in NewcastleÆs
West End on 24th November 1979.
Tracks 6-11 recorded at Impulse Studios, Wallsend on 10th October, 1980.
Tracks 12-14 recorded at Impulse Studios, Wallsend on 29th April, 1980.
Track 15 recorded at Impulse Studios, Wallsend on 6th February, 1983.
Venom need no introduction for any metalhead. Or at least for those who
are into thrash, black, speed and heavy metal. Yeah, for any metalhead.
ItÆs a legendary band that have been around since 1979 with some breaks
and many lineup changes. But what most of the metal fans think of and
what want to remember when it comes to Venom are their releases from
1979 to 1985 and the lineup that consisted of Cronos, Mantas and
Abaddon. But only the true fans know that in the beginning the band also
had a vocalist Clive Archer, that was naming himselfà Jesus Christ! They
recorded a few demos with him that used to be very rare, some of them
were also unreleased! To this day. Last year the band released an
anthology for their 40th anniversary called In Nomine Satanas. One of
the elements of the box set was Sons of Satan: Rare and Unreleased vinyl
compilation that consists of those demos. This August, the compilation
will be released separately, as 2 12" vinyls and CD digipak. IÆm going
to tell you why I think that itÆs worth checking out.
For most of the bands IÆm not very much interested in compilations, nor
in demos. Compilations are releases that contain songs from many
different albums, while I always prefer listening to the full studio
albums as they often are coherent pieces of art. Demos in turn are more
of a ôfun factsö of the band history than the releases I would normally
listen to. Although when I received Sons of Satan I thought that I need
to listen to it, because those demo recordings are the very beginnings
of the genres I love with my whole blackened heart. What I expected from
them was being raw recordings of the first versions of the songs that I
already know very well. And it is true for the first, 1979 recordings.
But I didnÆt expect that one of the studio sessions from 1980 will beà
better than Welcome to Hell itself to me!
he compilation starts with Church Hall Rehearsals recordings from 1979.
As you can expect, theyÆre raw as hell and very chaotic. You can barely
hear anything but the noise. But what you can spot during listening to
it are the vocals. TheyÆre veryà funny. They sound like Clive Archer /
Jesus Christ was trying to be as brutal and noisy as it gets, but it was
coming out just funny. (Especially ôTakes me HAYAH!ö) In general,
everything about those rehearsals is like that. The instruments are
played in a chaotic way and itÆs audible that those were only the roots
of the songs that later made it to Welcome to Hell and Black Metal
albums. But not all of them made it, because the last song of this
session is the bandÆs self-titled track Venom which, as far as I know,
was never released besides the demos. I donÆt know why. ItÆs pretty
interesting. But IÆll write more about it later. What is also
interesting about these recordings is how the versions of Buried Alive
and Raise the Dead are. Buried Alive is only 1 minute long(!) and is
connected with the latter, theyÆre like a one song. And this one minute
of ôBuried Aliveö is only the beginning of the 04:19 song that is on the
Black Metal album. IÆm glad that they expanded this song as it came out
being a masterpiece, one of the few Venom songs that after all these
years still stand out. But despite these recordings are chaotic and
almost unmusical, IÆm not telling that theyÆre unnecessary in the
compilation. As they are probably the first (or one of the very first)
Venom recordings ever, itÆs great to know how the band sounded in the
very beginning and how they evolved during the first years of the
career, even while being ôthe best band with the worst musiciansö.
After raw 1979 rehearsal recordings, what comes next are 1980 Impulse
Studios - ú50 demos which are the opposite of the first tracks and the
best part of the whole release. ú50 demos are 6 tracks, 5 of them later
became the highlights of the Welcome to Hell album and the sixth one is
the song Venom that I mentioned above. And weÆve come to the part when I
tell that this demo is in my opinion better than Welcome to Hell. Let me
explain what I mean. Firstly, the sound and the production. Everything
is very well hearable, everything sounds clear and beautiful, but still
ugly and obscure on the other hand. Especially worth noting are CronosÆ
bass lines. Before listening to this demo, I used to think that heÆs an
average bass player. But probably itÆs just the production of the albums
that made his lines sound not interestingly. Secondly, these versions of
the songs are in my opinion better than the versions that made it to the
full-length, in a large part. Especially Angel Dust. The opening riff is
insane! And IÆm not sure if in the album version thereÆs a different
riff in this song, or it just sounds differently because of the obscure
production. Because, in fact, Welcome to Hell is a demo that was
released as an album. I also like Jesus ChristÆs vocals a lot. But they
are strongly kept in the British heavy metal style and clean, so if he
remained the bandÆs vocalist for ôWelcome to Hellö there would be no
CronosÆ enormously inspiring ôpre-growlö. And of course, the full-length
has way more songs on it and all of them are very inspiring. I think
that it would be great if they recorded the whole Welcome to Hell during
this session, but with Cronos on vocals. Another good idea would be to
release this demo simply as an EP (after cutting off the unnecessary
parts) that would be a ôteaserö for the first Venom full-length. But on
the other hand, what is beautiful in it is the fact that itÆs a rare gem
and Welcome to Hell became legendary as it is. But I canÆt believe that
a demo this great wasnÆt released before. And besides the songs later
released on the album, there is also the bandÆs self-titled song. Even
though itÆs very straightforward and simple, itÆs really satisfying, so
I donÆt know why it (as far as I know) didnÆt make it to any VenomÆs
studio release. I also know that these demos were remastered and as they
sound great, itÆs worth noting that not only the demo is good, but also
good job was done in preparing this compilation.
The third part of the compilation are the recordings from 1980 Impulse
Studio Demo Session, already with Cronos on vocals. They are similar to
the ú50 ones, but the sound of the drums is way better, more generic.
Obviously as Cronos took over the microphone, the vocals are throatier.
We hear Angel Dust for the third time in the compilation (and the ú50
version remains my favorite) and Raise the Dead and Red Light Fever that
were also in the 1979 rehearsals, so we can hear how they have changed
during not more than a year. They both became way better of course, but
the reverb in the chorus of Raise the Dead came out being funny and
pointless. Also, the bass tone is a bit disturbing here. But those
recordings are very interesting to listen to and are an important part
in the bandÆs history. The last track on Sons of Satan is the demo
version of VenomÆs progressive anthem At War with Satan from 1983. ItÆs
good to know how it sounded in the beginning, although in contrast to
the ú50 demos itÆs not something I will normally listen to, because itÆs
recorded strangely û the guitar is louder in the left speaker and there
is a part when everything sounds muffled, like it was glued from several
different parts (and probably it was).
I wonÆt say anything surprising when IÆll say that those demos are a
must-listen for every Venom fan. But IÆll also tell that every fan of
extreme metal that would like to know how the very roots of their
beloved genres sounded like should check them out. Rating musically, I
would rate the 1979 demos 2/10, but itÆs not the point of this release.
Its goal is to share with the fans the bandÆs early recordings that used
to be rare or unreleased and doing that, show an important part of the
bandÆs history and their evolution. And this release fulfills this goal
very well. And as 1979 and later 1980 and 1983 recordings are more of a
fun facts to me, the ú50 1980 demo is very satisfying to listen to and I
feel that IÆll keep coming back to it even more often than to Welcome to
Hell album, which ironically has worse production.
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