Released: March 27, 2006
Venom invited the comparison themselves. Twenty-four years after Black Metal, they reversed the words, put the goat back on the cover, and released Metal Black. Cronos had spent months rehearsing early Venom songs with guitarist Mykvs and drummer Antton before they began writing. Could they recover the thinking behind those records without turning their own history into a costume?
“Antechrist” gives the first answer. Its spelling, shouted entrance, and immediate rush belong to the band that once treated accuracy as someone else’s concern. The weight underneath is different. Mykvs uses a thicker, lower guitar sound than Mantas had in 1982, while Cronos’s bass occupies so much of the middle that it regularly becomes the main rhythm instrument. Antton drives the riff with a firm kick pattern, then throws loose cymbal crashes across the transitions. The playing is rough around the edges, but every instrument remains audible.
Cronos produced the album himself, and his mix explains much of its character. The bass grinds against the guitar instead of sitting politely below it. Antton’s drums sound like a physical kit, complete with a dry snare and cymbals that spill across the quicker passages. Cronos’s voice is pushed forward, every cracked consonant easy to hear. Backing shouts from Mykvs and Antton turn choruses such as “Burn in Hell” and “Regé Satanas” into instructions for the crowd.
The writing also shows how much metal had changed since Venom’s first run. “House of Pain” locks into a choppy mid-tempo riff punctuated by pinched harmonics. Its groove comes from the band’s heavier post-reunion vocabulary, far removed from the runaway clatter of Welcome to Hell. “Sleep When I’m Dead” works a similarly blunt pattern, with Antton hammering beneath a guitar part that stops and starts like damaged machinery. The references reach back, but the guitar tone and low-end belong firmly to 2006.
The lyrics make no attempt to update the sales pitch. Satan, death, assassination, and eternal punishment all return, delivered with the same mixture of conviction and pub humour. “Burn in Hell” gets from “Inferno” to its title with almost comic efficiency. “Lucifer Rising” builds its appeal around a repeated vocal hook instead of detailed occult storytelling. Venom’s words have always worked best as something to yell along with, and Metal Black understands that.
Fourteen songs push the idea farther than necessary. Several mid-paced riffs occupy similar ground, and the album starts losing shape between its quicker attacks. “Maleficarvm” breaks the pattern by slowing down for six minutes. Mykvs leaves gaps between the broad, Sabbath-rooted chords, while Cronos stretches his lines across the open space. The title track then cuts everything back to fast riffing, a repeated slogan, and a short lead break.
So, could Venom reconnect with their early thinking without simply dressing up as the band they had been? Yes. The cover and reordered title make the historical claim, but the playing proves it. Cronos’s bass crowds the guitar, Antton lets the cymbals spill into the changes, and Mykvs brings a pinched-harmonic groove that could not have appeared on the 1982 record. They found their earlier instincts by putting them through the band they actually had in 2006. The dirt came from the way those three musicians played together, which is why Metal Black sounds lived-in instead of carefully reconstructed.
