Genre Anthems
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crimsonfloyd
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Kara-Shehr
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crimsonfloyd
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Basically Venom influenced the first few Bathory albums, but the first Bathory record makes all Venom obsolete.
crimsonfloyd
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TechnicalBarbarity
Poser Disposer
Thrash Metal - Holy Wars... The Punishment Due by Megadeth and Angel of Death by Slayer
Death Metal - Born Dead by Death and Maze of Torment by Morbid Angel
Black Metal - In the Shadow of the Horns by Darkthrone and The Somberlain by Dissection
... moar to come.
Death Metal - Born Dead by Death and Maze of Torment by Morbid Angel
Black Metal - In the Shadow of the Horns by Darkthrone and The Somberlain by Dissection
... moar to come.
HamburgerBoy
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Bonded By Blood
Breaking the Law
Eagle Fly Free
Pull the Plug
lolwut? The first Bathory album is Venom, just with worse song-writing and production. Bathory is nothing more than a lie that Europeans tell to their children at night.
Oh, and Viking metal is no more a genre than Voivod metal or Immolation metal or whatever little niche sound that a band may* have created.
*Other bands, especially Manowar, had already established the musical fundamentals of "Viking metal" before Quorthon
Breaking the Law
Eagle Fly Free
Pull the Plug
lolwut? The first Bathory album is Venom, just with worse song-writing and production. Bathory is nothing more than a lie that Europeans tell to their children at night.
Oh, and Viking metal is no more a genre than Voivod metal or Immolation metal or whatever little niche sound that a band may* have created.
*Other bands, especially Manowar, had already established the musical fundamentals of "Viking metal" before Quorthon
Bathory is great, but saying that their first record made Venom obsolete is just another crimsonfloydism (you may remember others, like the whole Velvet Cacoon being a black metal gem thing).
crimsonfloyd
Active Member
You would think something stupid like that.
Yeah that Venom record is a historical footnote, sorta like being 13 years old-an awkward but necessary stage that metal had to go through to reach bigger and better things.
And that Velvet Cacoon record is a masterpiece. Not my problem if you don't get it.
HamburgerBoy
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off the godpills
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Seems you guys can't get enough of quarreling to each other about black metal in every thread, lol.
crimsonfloyd
Active Member
Never said anything about it being "bigger" but it's definitely better.
Both Black Metal and Welcome to Hell are pretty hit and miss. About half the songs have sick hooks and the other half are just a chore to sit through. Overall Venom are limited and songwriters who have a finite number of quality riffs in their arsenal. The vocals are bad there's no ambiance. And there's just a certain mainstream edge in the guitar work that keeps if feeling "evil" in the way a Freddy Kruger movie feels "evil" rather than having a legitimately unsettling edge.
Everything about Bathory's debut is just better. It's darker, creepier and more sinister. Quorthon's growl is legitimately grotesque. The atmosphere is rawer and the guitars are harsher, which lends it a legitimately evil sound. And Quorthon doesn't approach the performance with a campy vibe, he just goes all out in making dark, unsettling music.
You think you get it. That is so cute
You see, ever crimsonfloydism has a bit of truth to it, before the blatant "wtf" moment.
Examples:
Bathory is good....their first album is so good that no one should ever listen to Venom!!
Velvet Cacoon has some nice ambient stuff going on here and there....it's one of the top 20 black metal albums of all time!!
I don't get Attila's vocals....therefore DMDS isn't one of the best black metal albums ever!!
Examples:
Bathory is good....their first album is so good that no one should ever listen to Venom!!
Velvet Cacoon has some nice ambient stuff going on here and there....it's one of the top 20 black metal albums of all time!!
I don't get Attila's vocals....therefore DMDS isn't one of the best black metal albums ever!!
crimsonfloyd
Active Member
Every black metal fan should listen to Venom's first two albums at least once as a historical reference. If they find it entertaining, then they should feel free to keep listening to it. However, it's just not nowhere near as accomplished of a work aesthetically or conceptually as Bathory's debut and it's silly to pretend otherwise.
Maybe I'll write something more thorough on Genevieve in the near future, but there's much more to it than "nice ambiance." You don't have to agree with me, but my position isn't invalid.
As for DMDS I think the atmosphere doesn't fit the compositions (I think Mayhem sounds better when presented as more vicious then spooky) and I think the vocal performance is campy and goofy. Therefore, I do not consider it a great album. I'll give it credit because the songwriting is very good, the solos are great and Hellhammer is off the charts. But it would be disingenuous if I pretended to consider it a top 20 black metal album just because everyone else does.
TechnicalBarbarity
Poser Disposer
I'm a fan of both bands ... but Venom doesn't have shit on Bathory. Everything they did, Quorthon did better with his first few albums.
HamburgerBoy
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"Mainstream edge", what does that even mean? Yeah, Venom came from a time where they were the cutting edge speed/thrash metal, without the hindsight to just rewrite Witching Hour, Heaven's On Fire, Black Metal, Bloodlust, etc several times like Quorthon. If that bothers you, I'm surprised you can listen to Bathory at all considering how mainstream those albums are relative to whatever is the high-watermark in black metal today. Put Necromansy and Raise the Dead aside and it's one unending and samey speed/thrash metal song after the next; not sure how you can hear atmosphere in such songs like Reaper and Sacrifice and not in the Venom ones I mentioned above. Not to mention that At War With Satan is more ambitious than anything Quorthon attempted during his black metal period.
And yeah
I love the sight of having you
down and open wide
The smell of a dead woman's flesh
just drives me fucking wild
I have to got you in my grasp now
there is no need to escape
I'll penetrate you
every virgin needs a rape
Just when you think you have
gone through all that gives you pain
I'm coming back to you
to penetrate again
Fucking evil man
crimsonfloyd
Active Member
There's some radio rock riffs in there that aren't exactly bad, but certainly don't lend to a disturbing and evil ambiance. It just gives it that feel of "don't worry guys! This is all just for fun," which hurts it as an aesthetic experience for me.
Sure, Bathory has more conventional song structures than most Second Wave black metal, but for what he's trying to accomplish on the self-titled it works perfectly. Raw, quick-hitting, evil trashers.
I'm not denying they're very similar, I'm just saying that Bathory is superior in execution and capturing the right atmosphere. I mean just listen to their different takes on the exact same song.
Venom's version contains a number of classic rock tropes including chanting vocals and slick, almost upbeat lead guitar and that stop-start "come on crowd, chant along!" ending. None of that is inherently bad, but does not help create a truly disturbing atmosphere (which I don't even know if that was their goal. For all I know Venom didn't even take their music seriously.)
Then there's Bathory. Thinner, more stripped down tone with absolutely no rock radio frills. All the sort of bright and softening elements are removed. All that's left is the dark central riff and grotesque vocal performance that brings the lyrics to life.
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You put down Venom for not creating a "disturbing atmosphere"...
...you do know they're a NWOBHM band, right?
...you do know they're a NWOBHM band, right?
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