Few bands can claim to have inspired an entire subgenre, let alone an entire genre of music. And few have terrified so many people to the core as Venom did in the early 1980s. Exploding onto the scene in 1981 with the single "In League With Satan," Cronos, Mantas, and Abaddon stormed the burgeoning New Wave of British Heavy Metal, armed with the most vile heavy metal assault ever committed to tape and a wealth of satanic imagery guaranteed to attract the attention of the censors.

Speaking of NWOBHM, when Venom embarked on their musical crusade, terms such as thrash and black metal did not yet exist. The NWOBHM label hardly captured the band's true spirit anyway. Nobody had ever taken the diabolical aesthetic to such extremes. No band had been quite so uncompromising, flamboyant, and blasphemous all at once. Their filthy, primitive sound, Cronos' vocals, which could hardly be described as singing, and the dark, occult imagery surrounding the band created a combination that would have an enormous influence on generations of metalheads to come. And all this despite the fact that the musicians themselves treated the whole satanic spectacle with a certain degree of tongue-in-cheek humor.

"Welcome To Hell" was released in 1981, but the real breakthrough came a year later with "Black Metal." It is difficult to argue with the claim that this is one of the most important albums in the history of metal: wild, merciless, and brutal by the standards of its time, brilliant in its filthy simplicity, with an iconic cover and an equally iconic collection of songs. It demonstrated that rawness could be a vehicle not only for sheer power but also for a unique, dark atmosphere. Its influence on the development of thrash and speed metal was immense, eventually extending to the genre that took its very name from the album.

Things were more uneven from there on. I love "At War With Satan," as well as the considerably weaker "Possessed," partly for sentimental reasons. The later albums are a different matter. I've listened to them all, but I don't own any of them, and I rarely feel the urge to revisit most of them. I won't pretend they were better than they actually were today, simply because Cronos has died. The passion may have remained, but inspiration was often in shorter supply.

I do, however, return to early Venom regularly. "Possessed" and the live album "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" were among the first vinyl records in my collection. They were Tonpress licensed editions purchased in 1987, and unfortunately, they seem to have vanished into thin air during my many moves. I never wore leather or chains, and my wardrobe was just beginning to fill up with progressive rock sweaters. My understanding of hell was rather vague at the time, shaped mainly by Dante. Nevertheless, early Venom, heavier and more vulgar than Motörhead, faster, darker, and more diabolical than Black Sabbath, struck a particular chord with me. And that's how it stayed.

Later, I was fortunate enough to see Cronos with Venom live several times, most recently in September last year at Summer Dying Loud. It probably wasn't the best show of that festival's edition, nor the finest Venom performance I've had the chance to witness. Cronos no longer sounded the way he used to. At times, there was more rasp than thunder, and there were moments when Satan seemed more inclined to stretch and yawn than to swing his pitchfork. Yet despite the stumbles, the concert had something that cannot be bought or imitated. After the show, I remarked, half-jokingly, that Cronos was "the only immortal devil in this lineup." Today, that statement has taken on a rather grim meaning.

I'm glad I got to see him on stage several times, and especially glad I had the chance to do so one last time, just over a year ago. There will be no more opportunities. All that remains are the records, the memories, and that monstrous, filthy noise recorded more than forty years ago, from which so much more grew than its creators could ever have imagined at the time.

"Lay down your soul to the gods rock 'n' roll."

Norbert