FEAR, EMPTINESS, DECIBEL: WELCOME TO HECK
Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli.
By now, you all know that Decibel’s December Hall of Fame is Venom’s Welcome to Hell. Good shit, right? Not to mention, it’s always fun when a HOF inductee either has a) two or three killer albums, but nothing that blows the rest of the discography out of the unholy water (I’d put Isis and Ministry in this category, although they haven’t popped up in the Hall just yet), or b) two or three stone-cold face-rulers, and no matter which record we pick, somebody will be harshed that the others got left out. Venom are of the latter ilk. (I wrote “ilk.”) You could make a strong-ass argument for Black Metal, and people have, emphatically. Being the dude who makes these calls can suck. And by “the dude,” I mean editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian, who I’ve as of yet failed to convince that Coal Chamber s/t would “tie the room together.” How about honoring both, you might ask? As of today, we haven’t inducted two albums from the same band; it would be a totally different nightmare determining who should be the first to deserve that. At the end of the day, in my eyes, Welcome to Hell vs. Black Metal — it’s a toss-up, right?
Or not. Sayeth Albert: “Welcome to Hell is hands-down the superior record. A lot of folks champion Black Metal as the better LP, but they think it’s better only because the record is CALLED Black Metal and it makes for a cooler T-shirt! Don’t get me wrong — Black Metal still rules — but tracks like “Teacher’s Pet” and “To Hell and Back” can’t hold an inverted cross to anything on Welcome to Hell.”
This is the same man, mind you, who won’t honor a pointless, already-forgotten sports bet by growing a beard and dying it black. But his reasoning may be a little sounder this time. Agreed?
-AB
If you wanna read Decibel‘s complete Hall of Fame entry on Venom’s Welcome to Hell, you’re gonna need to go ahead and buy yourself a copy of the December 2010 issue of Decibel. But, better yet, why don’t you just treat yourself and buy yourself a full subscription, so you can read EVERY Hall of Fame entry from now on?
