Monday, February 27, 2012

Venom "In League with Satan"+ Venom Covers By Voivod and Mayhem

Ah, Venom- nothing like a little "In League with Satan" on a gloomy day. Few bands have had as much influence on the rise of extreme metal as the early 80's British metal band Venom.As you can see above, even Voivod covered Venom. The media might be going crazy over that Skrillex kid right now, but on this blog, Voivod bring in the hits. Any band that influenced Voivod strongly has something going for them right there as far as I'm concerned. On the subject of blog hits, one of my more successful blogs on Art Observations with Jerry Magoo was a review of "Satanic Royalty" by Midnight. The band Midnight is really very much a rip-off of Venom. Sure, no one in Venom set a church on fire like members of Norwegian bands like Mayhem and Emperor. However, there are plenty of old photos of Varg Vikernes who did set churches on fire wearing a Venom t-shirt. Below, you can see church burning metal Norwegian black metal legends Mayhem doing a run through Venom's "Witching Hour". I believe that this video includes the photograph taken of Mayhem's lead singer Dead after he shot himself, for people obsessed with such odd details about Norwegian black metal and Mayhem in particular, of which there are many. Musically, what they accomplished would have been impossible if not for Venom. I've never read that Venom took their whole Satanic or anti-Christian gimmick seriously at all, but bands that followed in their footsteps have done so. Satanists, of course, have a highly ironic pre-occupation with Christianity. You wouldn't burn a church if it truly meant nothing to you. It's funny I recently saw old footage of Frank Zappa from the 80's on Crossfire talking about that whole PMRC censorship issue . I was struck by the disparity in quality between the rock and roll they were talking about and The Strokes ten years ago or Skrillex now. Back then when suburban housewives and Christians were concerned about Satanic lyrics, that was still pretty rock and roll. It wasn't the only rock and roll going on back then, but it was rock and roll.

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