I've been listening to Venom and Hellhammer nonstop for the last week or so. These bands are well-known to metal experts - but why does the love stop there? These two bands should be required listening for anybody starting a metal collection - not crap like Cradle of Filth or Protest the Hero. Anyway, if you have any appreciation for metal at all, and you've never heard Venom or Hellhammer - get thee to Amazon straight away. You only need three albums: Hellhammer's Demon Entrails, Venom's Welcome to Hell and Black Metal.

Trust me - once these songs get in your head - only the devil himself will be able to make you forget.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ezatldude,

Carefull with Venom though. They occasionally get a bit too enthusiastic with the speed and forget their limitations as musicians!

I still maintain they sound like Bad News but I can't knock 'em - they've influenced practically everyone in black metal. Without them there would be no Slayer and I would hazzard a guess that death metal probably wouldn't exist either. And they have funny accents too - they sound like Satanists who work on a building site in Newcastle.

With Venom, I'm really restricting my assessment (and worship) to their first two albums. I know some of their later stuff is supposed to be wank. As for the accents - I read that Cronos was actually from London and completely faked a Newcastle accent so he wouldn't get beat up or something. Any truth to this?

I don't know if that is true, but it certainly happens in the UK all the time.

There's a North/South divide - people in the South are often viewed as 'shandy drinking Southern ponces' (I currently reside there in Kent).

Life is a bit tougher in the North. This is before you even get into the relatively xenophobic areas of North Wales and parts of Ireland.

I was born in North Wales in the same village as Lemmy from Motorhead - lived in the area for most of my life. They regularly attacked English students at the weekends for being 'colonists' or something. At one point it was fashionable to burn down holiday homes.

In fact there's pockets of hatred all over the UK for neighbouring counties and cities. It's weird how such a small country can be so divided. That's not to say everyone's like that, but you get small groups everywhere you go. Consequently, I feel Mr Cronos may well have changed accent to fit in.

A good metaphor for all of this, is that pub in 'American Werewolf in London'. Those places are very rare but they do exist. If you ever visit the UK, be wary of anywhere that seems a bit like the 'Slaughtered Lamb'. Stick to the path and beware the moon lads!

Ok, so getting back to overlooked metal. I just ordered a couple of albums by Master. Apparently, they had wrote or recorded material for a death metal album in 1985, but due to some problems with their record label, it wasn't until 1990 that their debut LP Master was released. After hearing a few snippets online, I knew I had to have it. Just when I thought I had finished my "discovery" quest, something new (meaning old) comes out of nowhere. Digging around for this old stuff is so much fun. Now, if I can just get my hands on that Morbid Saint album...