Sigh remap the black metal landscape
NIHIL ARCHIVE
TYNESIDE TERRORS VENOM occupy a special place in our hearts, effectively birthing extreme metal with their gloriously crude, wild racket. Demo collection Sons Of Satan (BMG)[8] reveals the infernally ordained Cronos/Mantas/Abaddon line-up in their earliest, crudest, wildest form, joined by a short-lived vocalist named ‘Jesus Christ’, whose belched ejaculations effectively represent metal’s first death grunt. The boombox-taped 1979 Church Hall rehearsals sound abysmally primitive, but remaining sessions ring out loud and clear. Filled with raw, embryonic takes on future OTT classics, the whole experience feels akin to handing round thrash’s blurry baby photos.
The Geordie trio’s impact was particularly profound on Japan’s avant-masters SIGH; four live Venom covers are included on Peaceville’s two-disc reissue of 1993 debut, Scorn Defeat [9], one of the era’s most singular black metal artefacts. Already experimenting with unorthodox sounds and structures, blending haunted-house atmospheres with a playful eccentricity, it’s clear why Sigh so impressed Norwegian BM’s ‘Inner Circle’.