Metal Insider contributor Anthony Maisano is listening to a different metal album that was released on that day every day this year. Today, it’s Venom’s Metal Black, which was released on March 26th, 2006.
No, this is not the 1982 album Black Metal. This is the 2006 album Metal Black. But is it as groundbreaking as the former? Well, the cool thing is Cronos’ vocals honestly haven’t changed much since then! They still sound great, and aggressive. The riffs are tight and packed and add a great deal to the album. I really like the drummer’s bass drum sound. It sounds deep and pops nice, but doesn’t sound fake either. The solos on the album are also really cool too.
The guitars in general lack a good bit for me, though. A lot of techniques like the pinch harmonic are overused time and time again. Seriously. There aren’t many tracks that don’t have it. I also feel that for most tracks they are pretty low in the mix, and are drowned out by the vocals a lot. There also some songs like “A Good Day to Die” that have a style that is obviously adjusting to modern metal and just sounds out of place to me. “Blessed Dead” is the worst offender of this.
Favorite Tracks: “Lucifer Rising,” “Hours of Darkness,” “Darkest Realm.”
The vocals and drums are great, but the guitars are lacking to me. If you like Venom, or darker thrash, you’ll probably enjoy this album. The guitars are just so lacking on this release to me, that it stopped me from liking it even more. It’s a good album, and it’s worth checking out, but it just could have used that one extra step to make it even better.
