Audio CD review:
Venom - Calm Before the Storm

Venom - Calm Before the Storm

Band: Venom Title: Calm Before the Storm Rating: Release Date: 27 July, 1999 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Black Xmas 2: Chanting of the Priests 3: Metal Punk 4: Under a Spell 5: Calm Before the Storm 6: Fire 7: Krakin Up 8: Beauty and the Beast 9: Deadline 10: Gypsy 11: Muscle

Customer Reviews Experimental, but not without many faults With a new line-up in place, Venom would march into the studio and record their fifth studio album Calm Before the Storm. After the disappointing album Possessed and Mantas hightailing it to pursue a solo career, remaining members Cronos and Abaddon recruit two guitarists to take his place. With this release, Venom (or what I've read from interviews, Cronos) decided to do some experimenting. Unlike Possessed where the music sounded worn-out, redundant and de-evolved, Storm does the total opposite and goes too far into left field and in the process Venom alienated a lot of their fans. Cronos and crew threw most of their "black metal" sound out the window for a more upbeat traditional simplistic thrash sound. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind when bands experiment (unless its Metallica). Without bands changing their sound or experimenting, we wouldn't have stellar albums like Iron Maiden's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son or Judas Priest's Painkiller. But Venom's experiment. . . well. . . I guess it might have been better if the songs overall were better. What really hurts album is the songs aren't that great. The new "sound" might have been more stomach-able if it produced some killer tracks. The only real standouts are Black X-Mas, Chanting of the Priests, and the title track, but that's about it. These songs are only memorable because of some catchy courses and some good rhythms. Black X-Mas, probably the albums best track, is far too short clocking in at just under the 3 minute mark. This only adds salt to an already open wound. The rest of the songs are just simple and unmemorable. Metal Punk is an attempt at a "punk" metal song, and it fails. Under a Spell, Krakin' Up, Beauty and the Beast, Deadline, Gypsy, and Muscle all suffer from mediocrity with poor to silly lyrics and a considerable lack of good guitar solo's. It's sad to say but after listening to this album, I can see where Venom sorely misses Mantas's guitar talent and song writing abilities. Many people might be unaware but Mantas was responsible for most of Venom's more memorable and kick-ass songs from their earlier releases and without him, the band seems lost. The one really good thing is that Venom finally got decent production as there is no comparing the production of Storm and Possessed when it comes to production quality. Sadly, just because an album has decent production doesn't necessarily make it good, as with the case here. Fans retaliated against the album and Cronos knew it, so he took Mantas's replacements and jumped ship to record some solo albums where he would continue to refine this new "sound", and I have to admit, he did craft the sound better in his solo efforts (He would even re-record the song "Fire" for his solo compilation creatively titled "Venom") Will die hard fans like this CD? Most probably won't but there are a few fans like me that will find at least a few songs too like here. Calm Before the Storm. . . another entry into Venom's interesting and complex history as a heavy metal band. More interesting entries would come later. . . . It should also be mentioned that Storm has been re-released numerous times sometimes under different tiles and covers. Make sure to steer clear of the versions released under the names Metal Punk and Beauty and the Beast as they are cheap issues with silly cover art and considerably lower sound quality. Either get the original Neat Records release with the original lightning bolt cover or the Deadline re-issue with some sort of weird man/cat creature on the cover. MIND BLOWER !!!!!!!!! The 2 first tracks are excellent but traditional heavy metal style,exciting but kinda dissapointing compared to previous albums. This record is Venom's fifth release,their first since guitarrist MANTAS left the band and was replaced by two extremely competent lead guitarrists. From track 3¨Metal Punk¨on,all hell breaks loose and the music starts whipping you in pure thrash fashion,of a very unique and particular style-new Venom-we could call it. It's so intense and fast paced you won't believe your ears. The sound,unlike all previous albums,is increbible,almost pefect and featuring dynamics to spare !!! The new guitarrists'technique is polished AND dirty at the same time,and Abbadon is at his best on the drums,that sound like a machine gun !!! This release won't dissapoint either old or new fans,I just won't ever figure why it is so underrated,really beats me. It is,in my humble opinion,one of the best trash metal albums of all times. Not Venom's best, but still an O.K. album Not THE weakest, because that would be 1992s "The Waste Lands". This is definitely one of Venom's weakest albums. That one sucked. "Calm Before the Storm" originally started with "Deadline" as the original title, when Mantas was still in the band, but then left. He was replaced by two guitarists: Mike Hickey & Jim Clare. Unfortunately, even the two of them weren't as good as Mantas. In fact the sound on the entire album is kind of "thin". The guitars just sound kind of weak, not very powerful and just a little "hurried", like they had to finish recording the album real quick or something. Still, the songs themselves are pretty good for the most part. The best ones here are the opening track, "Black Xmas", which sounds more like the original Venom did; "Metal Punk", a good little aggressive thrasher; the somewhat commercial "Under A Spell", a song that Cronos actually attempted to sing on; "Calm Before the Storm", another powerful tune with some good drumming from Abaddon; "Fire", another thrasher; and "Gypsy", which also has Cronos doing some nice vocalizations on. One weak song here is "The Chanting of the Priests". This one just sounds too rushed. It's not nearly as good as the live version (with Mantas) on "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik". Here it's just sloppy. You can tell that Venom were at a really low point in their careers here because the album was originally released by K-TEL! Yeah, that K-Tel. All in all, not a very "dark" album like their earlier ones, but it's still a pretty decent one. At least they tried. And if you really like Mike & Jim's guitar work, check out Cronos' first solo album, "Dancing in the Fire", which kind of sounds like "Calm. . . ", because when he left Venom, he took them with him. . You can see a complete list of all Venom discography, or go back to the Venom tabs