Venom - At War With Satan (1984, France) 12" Vinyl LP Album

- The 1984 Gatefold That Made Record Shops Sweat And Parents Mutter

Album Front cover of Venom At War With Satan showing a brown leather-textured gatefold sleeve with pale gothic lettering, a large inverted cross in the centre, decorative corner ornaments, and the jagged Venom logo across the lower half. The left edge shows part of the album spine and gatefold fold, giving the cover the look of an old occult book dragged from a very suspicious record shelf.

Seen from above, the front cover looks like a battered brown occult ledger rather than a polite heavy metal sleeve. The pale title sits near the top in gothic lettering, the inverted cross dominates the centre, and the Venom logo sprawls across the lower half like graffiti from a crypt wall. The visible spine and fold on the left make the gatefold format obvious, while the worn edges and muted colours give it proper old-vinyl atmosphere.

Venom pushed NWOBHM’s dirty back-room menace into something far nastier with "At War With Satan", a 1984 album that helped drag extreme metal further out of the cellar and straight into moral-panic daylight. It is not elegant, and thank heaven for that. The title track sprawls across the room like smoke, leather, and bad decisions, while "Rip Ride" and "Genocide" snap back with shorter bursts of crude, blackened energy. The sound is raw, raspy, and gloriously ill-mannered, the sort of record that made sensible shop managers nervous and teenagers suddenly very interested. On this French gatefold pressing, the whole thing still feels like contraband with corners.

"At War With Satan" (1984) Album Description:

By 1984, Venom were no longer just the grubby Newcastle loudmouths kicking mud over the tidier end of NWOBHM. "At War With Satan" arrived as their third album and pushed the joke, the threat, and the theatre into one swollen, side-long declaration. Where other bands were tightening their craft, Venom made a record that sounded like a pub cellar, a church pamphlet, and a faulty amplifier had been locked in the same room overnight.

The strange bit is that this should have collapsed under its own cape-and-candle nonsense. A near twenty-minute title track? A gatefold dressed up like a forbidden book? Retail panic, gothic quotations, leather-print sleeves, and Cronos barking as if the microphone owed him money? It is ridiculous. And yet, once the needle lands, the thing starts to make its own ugly sense.

Britain in 1984 was not exactly short of metal noise, but the mood had shifted. The first NWOBHM rush had already spat out its hopefuls, heroes, chancers, and pub-stage casualties. Iron Maiden were moving in larger rooms, Def Leppard had already polished themselves for export, and down in the dirtier lanes you had Tank, Raven, Warfare, and Venom keeping the stink of speed, leather, and bad intentions alive. Venom did not sound like they wanted entry into polite heavy metal society. They sounded like they wanted to be thrown out loudly enough to count as publicity.

"At War With Satan" sits in that awkward, fascinating place between NWOBHM, early black metal, speed metal, and the incoming thrash charge. In the same year, Metallica were sharpening the blade with "Ride the Lightning", Slayer were turning nastier with "Haunting the Chapel", Mercyful Fate were bringing theatrical precision, Bathory were dragging the underground further into the cave, and Celtic Frost were starting their own bleak mutation. Venom, bless their filthy boots, had no interest in finesse. They went for volume, nerve, and the sort of satanic pantomime that made nervous adults do half the promotional work for them.

The title track is the big gamble. It eats the whole first side, lumbering through riffs, spoken passages, abrupt shifts, and that slightly cracked epic ambition that makes early extreme metal so much more interesting than clean modern competence. There is drag in it, weight, a bit of mess, and a lot of nerve. It does not glide; it staggers forward with smoke in its lungs.

Side Two snaps back into shorter violence. "Rip Ride" has that nasty forward bite, "Genocide" runs with a blunt street-level shove, and "Cry Wolf" shows that beneath the costume-shop sulphur there was a band learning how to make their chaos land harder. Not neatly. Never neatly. Venom were not building cathedral metal; they were kicking through the side door and nicking the candles.

The classic line-up is the whole point here: Cronos on bass and vocals, Mantas on guitar, Abaddon on drums. Cronos gives the record its broken-glass throat and overdriven bass snarl, Mantas keeps the riffs sharp enough to cut through the fog, and Abaddon hammers the thing along with a loose, clattering force that feels more human than polished. Produced by Venom themselves, the album carries that dangerous advantage of sounding exactly like the band thought it should sound, whether good taste agreed or not.

The sleeve helps, and not in some tasteful collector-magazine way. This French Neat / Bernett gatefold pressing turns the album into a mock occult volume: brown leather-print surface, gothic lettering, inverted cross, flame-filled interior, and an orange Bernett label that looks cheerfully bureaucratic beside all the doom. That is the comedy of vinyl collecting right there. One minute Armageddon, the next minute SACEM, SDRM, "33 tours", and a catalogue number doing the paperwork.

The controversy was not imaginary. The album’s anti-Christian imagery and title helped trigger retail unease in the UK, with HMV commonly named among the chains that pulled it from shelves, and WH Smith also appearing in accounts of the withdrawal. Whether every telling of that story has grown extra horns over the years is another matter. Metal folklore does that. Still, the basic effect is clear: the record looked dangerous enough to make shop managers twitch, which for Venom was practically a marketing department with better shoes.

A small late-night truth: this is the kind of LP that feels better with the room slightly too dark and the sleeve open beside the turntable, not because the devil appears, but because the cardboard starts doing half the talking. The fake leather, the flames, the scuffed edges, the label text — all of it reminds you that metal history was not built only from riffs. It was built from objects people handled badly and loved anyway.

"At War With Satan" did not turn Venom into mainstream heavy metal champions, despite the scale of the gesture. Too weird for the clean crowd, too crude for the technicians, too theatrical for anyone with a fear of embarrassment. Good. That is why it still has teeth. It catches a band at the point where their myth, their limitations, and their nerve all collided in public.

Later Venom history would get messier, with departures, returns, reworkings, and the usual metal family arguments conducted at unreasonable volume. But this album belongs to the original dirty triangle of Cronos, Mantas, and Abaddon, before the legend had been laminated. It is not perfect. Perfect would have ruined it.

References

Album Key Details: Genre, Label, Format & Release Info

Music Genre:

Punk Crossover Death/Black Metal

Label & Catalognr:

Neat / Bernett Records – Cat#: SB 18008

Album Packaging

Gatefold/FOC (Fold Open Cover) Album Cover Design with artwork / photos on the inside cover pages.

Media Format:

Record Format: 12" Vinyl Stereo Gramophone Record
Total Weight: 270g

Release Details:

Release Date: 1984

Release Country: France

Collector’s Note: Venom’s Gatefold Slice of 1984 Moral Panic

When I look at Venom’s "At War With Satan", I do not see just another loud 1984 metal LP. This French Neat / Bernett SB 18008 pressing has all the right collector ingredients: the gatefold sleeve, the theatrical outrage, and that ridiculous title track stretched across nearly one full side like somebody decided restraint was for accountants.

The fun, of course, is that this record also carries the smell of record-shop panic. UK chains reportedly pulled it from their shelves, which only made Venom look more dangerous to teenagers and more absurd to everyone clutching their pearls. For my archive, this one earns its place easily: history, visual bite, controversy, and vinyl attitude in one wonderfully overcooked package.

Band Members / Musicians:

Band Line-up:
  • Cronos – bass guitar, vocals

    Conrad "Cronos" Lant, born on 15 January 1963, is the bassist and vocalist most people picture when Venom comes crashing into the room. Not polished. Not polite. Not one of those tidy heavy metal frontmen who sounded as if they had read the manual first. Cronos came out of the Newcastle metal racket with bass, voice, leather, distortion and enough bad attitude to make the NWOBHM scene feel less like a movement and more like a pub fight behind a rehearsal room.

    more...

    Venom formed in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1978, but the version that really burned itself into metal memory was the classic three-piece: Cronos on bass and vocals, Mantas on guitar, and Abaddon on drums. By the time "Welcome to Hell" arrived in 1981, they were already rougher, faster and nastier than most of the neat little NWOBHM hopefuls trying to look dangerous under decent stage lights. Venom sounded like the lights had blown out altogether.

    Then came "Black Metal" in 1982, and there it was: a title that stopped being just an album name and started crawling across the underground as a whole ugly idea. Cronos did not sing so much as bark, spit and drag the words across broken glass. His bass was not there for tasteful support either. It shoved. It snarled. It made the records feel overloaded, as if the speakers were being asked to do something frankly unreasonable.

    That is why the old Venom records still matter to collectors. Not because they are perfect. Good grief, no. The charm is partly that they are not perfect. They have the smell of cheap rehearsal rooms, Neat Records vinyl, imported sleeves, tape hiss, bad decisions and teenage volume. In the early eighties, while plenty of bands were polishing their boots for the next Kerrang! photo, Venom seemed busy kicking the door off its hinges.

    Cronos left Venom in late 1986 and took Mike Hickey and Jim Clare with him to form his own Cronos project. His solo debut, "Dancing in the Fire", appeared in 1990, not 1986 as lazy copy sometimes claims. Useful correction, that. Metal history is already noisy enough without adding bad dates to the amplifier hum.

    The original Venom trio returned in the mid-1990s, which gave collectors another reason to pull the early LPs from the shelf and argue over which period really mattered. For me, the essential Cronos is still the one trapped in those early records: "Welcome to Hell", "Black Metal", "At War With Satan", "Possessed". That run has the grubby magic. The sound of British metal losing its manners.

    On "At War With Satan", especially, Cronos is less a traditional frontman and more a warning label with boots. The long title track, the gatefold theatre, the whole exaggerated satanic pantomime: it should have collapsed under its own nonsense. Somehow it does not. It lumbers forward, ridiculous and magnificent, and that is very Venom. Half menace, half cartoon thunderstorm, fully collectible.

    References and Further Reading
  • Mantas – guitar

    Jeffrey "Mantas" Dunn is the Newcastle guitarist who helped give Venom their blade-edge. Not the tidy, heroic guitar-god sort of thing. Mantas sounded more like somebody had dragged NWOBHM into a darker alley and decided melody could wait outside for a minute. His playing on "Welcome to Hell" and "Black Metal" is rough, direct and gloriously unfriendly, which is exactly why those records still bite.

    After his first run with Venom, Dunn formed Mantas and later worked with projects including M-pire of Evil and Venom Inc. The old note said he contributed guest guitar to Warfare’s "A Conflict of Hatred" in 1992, but that is wrong: the album was originally released in 1988 and credits Mantas on guest guitar. Small date, big difference. Collectors notice these things. We are annoying like that, but usually right.

    References and Further Reading
  • Abaddon – drums

    Anthony "Abaddon" Bray, born on 17 September 1960, was the drummer in Venom’s classic Newcastle line-up, sitting behind the kit while Cronos and Mantas dragged British metal into rougher, nastier territory. He was not a polished technical drummer, and that is almost the point. On those early Venom records, the drums do not glide. They clatter, shove and kick the songs forward like a Transit van with bad brakes.

    Abaddon played through the essential Venom years, from the early NWOBHM underground into the records that helped black metal, speed metal and thrash metal find something uglier to chew on. "Welcome to Hell", "Black Metal", "At War With Satan" and "Possessed" all carry that same blunt percussive attack: loose in places, primitive in others, but alive. Very alive. The sort of drumming that makes the record feel less manufactured and more confiscated by the authorities.

    After the classic era, Bray remained tangled in the Venom story through later reunions and eventually Venom Inc., the project with Mantas and Tony "Demolition Man" Dolan that grew out of the old 1989-1992 Venom connection. By then the myth had already done its damage. For collectors, Abaddon belongs to the dirty heartbeat of the early albums: the part that keeps the whole satanic circus lurching forward when good taste, sensible production and polite musicianship have wisely left the building.

    References and Further Reading

Complete Track-listing:

Tracklisting Side One:
  1. At War with Satan (19:57)
Tracklisting Side Two:
  1. Rip Ride (3:08)
  2. Genocide (3:58)
  3. Cry Wolf (4:18)
  4. Stand Up (And Be Counted) (3:31)
  5. Women, Leather and Hell (3:21)
  6. Aaaaargghh (2:24)
Tracklisting Notes:

The tracklisting belongs to VENOM "At War with Satan". Side One is dominated by the long title track, while Side Two carries the shorter, more direct cuts. Very Venom: one side goes full theatrical thunderstorm, the other starts kicking furniture around.

Disclaimer: Track durations shown are approximate and may vary slightly between different country editions or reissues. Variations can result from alternate masterings, pressing plant differences, or regional production adjustments.

This gallery shows the French Neat / Bernett pressing of VENOM "At War with Satan" the way a record should be seen: not as some sterile database entry, but as cardboard, ink, glare, and the odd sign of age. The front sleeve has that blunt Venom theatre about it, while the back cover keeps things busy enough to reward a proper look. The gatefold inner photo is where the packaging starts earning its shelf space, because these old fold-open covers always tell you more than the front ever admits. The label close-up is the real collector bait, of course: typography, catalogue detail, and pressing character hiding in plain sight. Open the full gallery for the useful little clues.

Album Front Cover Photo
VENOM At War with Satan front cover showing a brown leather-textured gatefold vinyl sleeve with pale gothic title lettering near the top, a large inverted cross in the centre, and the jagged Venom logo across the lower half. The left side shows the spine and fold area with partial text, while pale corner ornaments frame the right edge.

Seen from above, this front cover behaves less like a normal heavy metal sleeve and more like a fake occult book left open on a record-shop counter to annoy the nervous. The brown surface tries hard to look like aged leather, with printed grain running all over it, and the pale gold ink sits on top with that slightly flat, old-sleeve look you get when ink has survived the years but not escaped them. The title sits high and gothic, polite enough to read, then the inverted cross drops into the middle like the punchline nobody at HMV apparently found amusing.

The left edge gives away the gatefold immediately. There is the spine strip, the fold, a bit of partial Venom lettering, and those horizontal pale bands running across like somebody wanted this thing to pass as a sinister volume from a library that never dusted properly. The corners show rubbed edges and softened board, especially along the top and bottom, where the sleeve has clearly met shelves, hands, and probably a few careless teenage elbows. Small scuffs and pale marks sit in the darker areas, not dramatic, just the normal archaeology of a record that has been pulled out more than once.

The huge Venom logo sprawls across the bottom half, sharp and awkward in the best possible way, the sort of lettering that refuses to sit neatly because neatness would rather spoil the joke. It is theatrical, yes, but not slick. That is the useful part. The design concept is obvious: make the LP look like forbidden scripture, then slap the band logo on it like a gang tag from hell. Subtle? Absolutely not. Effective? Annoyingly, yes.

What catches the eye first is the cross, then the logo, then the tired surface texture once the sleeve is close enough to handle. The decorative corner pieces on the right are a bit much, but Venom were hardly in the business of tasteful restraint, thank goodness. The whole thing feels calculated to upset parents, shop managers, and anyone who thought heavy metal should still behave like hard rock with better boots. As a collector object, it works because the wear does not ruin the illusion; it makes the sleeve feel more like something smuggled around in bags, played too loud, and filed badly by someone who knew exactly what they had.

Album Back Cover Photo
VENOM At War with Satan back cover showing a brown leather-textured gatefold vinyl sleeve titled The Book of Armageddon. A central poem panel is held by outlined hands, with pale decorative corner ornaments on the left, a small price sticker at the upper right, label and catalogue markings near the top, and Distribution Musidisc and Bernett logos along the bottom.

Seen from above, this back cover looks like somebody at Venom decided an ordinary rear sleeve was far too civilised and reached instead for a mock occult book, because of course they did. The title The Book of Armageddon sits across the top in pale gothic lettering, big enough to announce the joke before the eyes even reach the central panel. The brown printed surface is pretending to be old leather, with that busy grain pattern spread across the board, and under the light it has the slightly tired, flat look of ink that has been rubbed by years of handling rather than lovingly preserved in some climate-controlled collector fantasy.

The first thing that catches the hand, visually speaking, is the centred rectangle held by those outlined hands. The fingers are drawn as pale line art, almost comic-book simple, gripping the little text panel as if it contains prophecy, court evidence, or the sort of lyric insert that gets parents writing letters. The Shakespeare quotation and Venom ’84 text are packed into the panel in tiny gothic type, which is dramatic but also mildly annoying because it makes you lean in like a fool. That is probably deliberate. Venom never wasted a chance to make theatrical nonsense feel like an event.

The physical copy tells the better story than the design brief ever could. The upper edge is rubbed and a little pale, the corners are softened, and cloudy surface scuffs drift through the brown areas where the sleeve has met hands, shelves, and the usual record-pile abuse. At the top right sits a small white price sticker, still clinging there like retail reality refusing to leave the apocalypse alone. Near it, the tiny printed label and catalogue information sits boxed and practical, while the bottom carries the Distribution Musidisc mark, 1984 Neat Records line, and the Bernett logo in the lower right.

The right-hand strip shows part of the folded gatefold edge and a sliver of the front/spine artwork, so the sleeve does not feel like a flat image but like a real fold-open object lying slightly awkwardly on the desk. That matters. A gatefold like this always has weight and nuisance built into it. The concept is heavy-handed, sure, but it works because the wear and old sticker drag the whole satanic pageant back into the world of record shops, import bins, thumb marks, and teenagers with no money but plenty of volume. Far better than clean perfection, frankly. Clean copies can be suspicious little liars.

Album Inner Cover Photo
VENOM At War with Satan inside gatefold image showing orange and yellow flames rising across a dark background, with a blackened central shape behind the fire. White gothic text is printed near the upper centre as a quoted lyric or statement. The lower area is darker, with vertical burn-like streaks and heavy contrast between the flame shapes and shadowed background.

Seen from above, the inside gatefold drops the fake-book leather business and goes straight for fire, which is about as subtle as a brick through a church window. The whole panel is swallowed by orange and yellow flames, soft at the edges, almost smeared by the printing, with dark shapes behind them that look less like tidy illustration and more like something caught in the heat. The white gothic text floats near the top centre, and yes, it makes you lean closer again. Venom clearly enjoyed making people squint. Very considerate of them.

The design concept is obvious within half a second: open the sleeve and get the theatrical punishment chamber. No band photos, no polite studio credits laid out like a school report, just fire and a bit of overcooked scripture. That works. It is not clever in the academic sense, thank goodness, but it is direct. The flames fill the space so heavily that the gatefold feels less like packaging and more like a cheap horror prop folded around a record. A good cheap horror prop, mind you. There is a difference.

Handled in the hand, the physical image has that old printed-photo softness. The flame colours bleed gently into each other, the dark lower section has vertical streaking and dull black-brown patches, and tiny specks in the printed surface catch the eye once the sleeve is tilted under light. The bottom edge looks darker and heavier, as if the ink has pooled into a grubby line. There is no glossy modern sharpness here, just the slightly fuzzy, lived-in reproduction of an early-eighties metal sleeve doing its best to look dangerous on cardboard.

The central blackened shape behind the flames gives the panel weight, though it is vague enough to be useful. Let the buyer invent the horror; cheaper that way, and probably more effective. The gothic quote at the top is the calculated bit, the little voice of doom floating above the heat, and it nearly tips into pantomime. Nearly. But the flames rescue it by being so blunt and physical. Opened flat on a desk, this inner gatefold says exactly what Venom wanted said: no comfort, no refinement, no apologies, just an LP sleeve trying to smell faintly of smoke even when it obviously does not. Irritatingly persuasive.

Close up of Side One record’s label
Close-up of the Side One label for VENOM At War with Satan, showing an orange Bernett Records label on black vinyl. The Bernett logo is printed across the top, with SB 18008, 33 tours, and Face A on the left, SACEM and SDRM rights boxes on the right, and VENOM with the title track At War With Satan printed below the centre hole.

This is the Side One label for VENOM "At War With Satan", photographed close enough to make the practical collector details useful instead of decorative. The orange Bernett Records label sits inside the black vinyl like a warning lamp, with the large stylised Bernett logo stretched across the upper half. The spindle hole cuts through the middle, and the label surface shows faint handling marks and light scuffs, the usual little betrayals that tell you this record has not spent its life sealed in fantasy-land.

On the left, the label carries the catalogue number SB 18008, the speed 33 tours, and the side designation Face A. On the right, the copyright year ℗ 1984 sits above the French rights society box for SACEM / SDRM, with STEREO printed below. Around the rim, the legal text is in French, circling the label in that tiny no-nonsense print nobody reads until they need to identify a pressing. Typical collector behaviour. Annoying, but necessary.

The lower centre gives the essential music information: VENOM, the track title At War With Satan, and the writer credit (Lant-Dunn). Beneath that are publishing and production notes, including Ed. Power Metal Pub. / Neat Music Pub., Produced by Venom, original sound recording made by Neat Records, and Distribution MUSIDISC. The whole label is plain, functional, slightly rough, and very French-market mid-eighties in the best cardboard-and-vinyl sense.

Bernett Records, France Label

This Side One label uses the orange Bernett Records design found on this French pressing of VENOM "At War With Satan". The layout is practical rather than pretty: company logo at the top, catalogue and speed information to the left, rights society details to the right, and the band and title information below the centre hole. No fireworks here, just the evidence a collector actually needs.

Colours
Orange label with black printed text and logo, surrounded by black vinyl.
Design & Layout
Circular centre label with large Bernett Records logo across the upper area, catalogue and side details on the left, rights society and stereo details on the right, and band/title credits below the centre hole.
Record company logo
The Bernett Records logo is drawn in a large flowing script style, with an oversized decorative capital “B” and the word “Records” spaced underneath. It functions as the label-brand mark and immediately identifies this as the Bernett French issue.
Band/Performer logo
No separate Venom band logo is used on this label. The band name appears as plain bold uppercase text: VENOM.
Unique features
French “33 tours” speed wording, “Face A” side designation, SACEM / SDRM rights box, “Made in France” rim text, and Distribution MUSIDISC credit.
Side designation
Face A
Rights society
SACEM / SDRM
Catalogue number
SB 18008
Rim text language
French, with “Made in France” visible on the right-hand rim text.
Track list layout
Single Side One track listed in the lower centre: “At War With Satan”, with writer credit “(Lant-Dunn)”.
Rights info placement
Rights society box placed to the right of the centre hole beneath the ℗ 1984 marking, with STEREO printed below.
Pressing info
Country information appears in the rim text on the right side as “Made in France”.
Background image
No background illustration on the label; the design is a solid orange printed label with text and company branding.

All images on this site are photographed directly from the original vinyl LP covers and record labels in my collection. Earlier blank sleeves were not archived due to past storage limits, and Side Two labels are often omitted when they contain no collector-relevant details. Photo quality varies because the images were taken over several decades with different cameras. You may use these images for personal or non-commercial purposes if you include a link to this site; commercial use requires my permission. Text on covers and labels has been transcribed using a free online OCR service.

Note: The images on this page are photos of the actual album. Slight differences in color may exist due to the use of the camera's flash.

Venom: Pioneers of Black Metal and Controversial Protagonists of Metal Culture.

Updated VENOM - At War with Satan album front cover vinyl LP album https://vinyl-records.nl

1984 Satanic Theatre, Shop Panic, And One Ridiculous Side-Long Beast

VENOM - At War with Satan

When I pull out "At War with Satan", I hear Venom pushing NWOBHM past the pub door and into blackened metal mischief. The side-long title track lurches like a demon with bad balance, while "Rip Ride" and "Genocide" come in swinging. Cronos, Mantas and Abaddon keep the circus rattling forward.

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VENOM - Calm Before The Storm

Venom's "Calm Before The Storm" represents a significant departure from the band's earlier work, offering a more polished, melodic sound while still retaining their trademark aggression and intensity. The album may not be as well-known as some of their earlier releases, but it still holds an important place in the history of the metal genre.

Calm Before The Storm 12" Vinyl LP
VENOM - Doomed to Hell
Thumbnail of VENOM - Doomed to Hell album front cover

Big Thumb Records WEN 1102 , 1984 , USA

"Doomed to Hell" was not recorded during the "American Assault" tour, nor was it recorded in the Netherlands. In fact, "Doomed to Hell" is not an actual Venom live album, but rather a bootleg recording that was falsely attributed to the band. The recording is often mislabeled as being from a live show in 1984, although the exact location and date of the recording remain unknown. 

Doomed to Hell 12" Vinyl LP
  VENOM - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
Thumbnail of   VENOM - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik album front cover

NEAT Records RR 9639 , 1986 , Holland

"Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" is the live album released by English heavy metal band Venom in 1986. It contains partial recordings of two different concerts with two different setlists. The first disc contains a show recorded at Hammersmith Odeon in London on 8 October 1985 and the second disc recorded at The Ritz in New York City on 4 and 5 April 1986.

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik 12" Vinyl 2LP
VENOM - Prime Evil
Thumbnail of VENOM - Prime Evil album front cover

Under One Flag FLAG 36 , 1989 , England

"Prime Evil" is a landmark album in the history of metal music. It marked a significant shift in Venom's sound and lyrical content, showcasing the band's growth as musicians. The album's polished sound and refined songwriting demonstrated the band's ability to evolve and adapt to changing musical landscapes.

Prime Evil 12" Vinyl LP
Thumbnail of VENOM - Warhead album front cover
VENOM - Warhead 12" Maxi Single

“Warhead” isn’t just a Venom release—it’s a declaration of sonic warfare. The 1983 12" maxi single fuses apocalyptic lyrics with punishing speed, capturing the trio at their most primal. Cronos’s vocals sound possessed, Mantas’s riffs slash like razors, and the result is the defining blueprint for blackened metal fury in its earliest, purest form.