Bathory, Scandinavian Metal Attack II, 1985 (First Wave XXIV)

• Hades – forever wrapped in darkness…
• War – Heaven in it’s final breath…

“Troops of Hell tonight they storm,  The walls they so despise, Heaven’s gates are closing in, The night is filled with cries…”Quorthon, Stefan Larrson

Venom, Possessed, 1985 (First Wave XXVIII)

• Powerdrive – NWOBHM thrash.
• Flytrap – a thundering Black Metal dirge, lightened with throwaway lyrics…
• Satanachrist – evil Black Metal trash…
• Burn This Place To The Ground – blackened thrash.
• Harmony Dies – NWOBHM, blackened lyrics.
• Possessed – eerie, haunting, tuneless, grim, cvlt…
• Hellchild – more trad metal.
• Moonshine – proggy folk scented metal.
• Wing And A Prayer – Megadeth riffing speed metal.
• Suffer Not The Children – simple metal with some hauting lyrical touches.
• Voyeur – horrible trashy porn metal, proto-gore-metal.
• Mystique – middle east meets orgasmatron.
• Too Loud (For The Crowd) – ouch.

“…I mount the virgin Venus, Plague the blackened sea, I am the soul’s destructor, Marching without fear…” Cronos, Mantas, Abaddon.

…the last recording of the orginal Venom lineup…and almost demolike in its simplicity.

Possessed, Demo (1985)

• Fallen Angel – very reminiscent of the Norwegian style, crude, yet haunting and vibrant Black Metal…
• Swing Of The Axe – very raw version of a track that would not be recorded until 1987…
• Death Metal – more refined version of ‘that’ track.

“Hellsent souls become his slaves, Working against all, Bringing pain the master raves, Lucifer they call…” Jeff Becerra, Mike Torraro, Larry LaLonde, Mike Sus.

The first death metal band exists here as a Blackened Death Metal band before their path diverged…epic.

 

Slayer, 1981-1985, Angels Of Death…

Slayer, a behemoth in the thrash metal world and the most extreme of the Big Four of thrash from the late 80’s thrash explosion that spread out from the US. Their first four dark offerings are true Black Metal classics and helped move Black Metal further towards its blackened thrash era. Slayer the fallen Angels Of Death moved away from the scene after Hell Awaits, stripping the blackened element from their sound to become a cleaner sounding punkier thrash metal group. Their roots always creeped amongst the dark path as numerous tracks would appear on their later releases that would sit comfortably on any black metal release, lyrically and musically. But for now, until Slayer releases another truly black metal record their path moves away from the cvlt…