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When Michel, who runs The Metal Crypt, told me the new Venom album, From the Very Depths, was not like their old stuff I thought, "how different can it be?" The answer, it turns out, is a lot. The band that has inspired a thousand imitators and overcome the general impression, mostly from early in their career, of not being very good is still a dark, satanic Thrash Metal band so don’t worry that they’ve gone soft or anything. Basically, the frenetic playing that gave the early songs a cobbled together air has been replaced with a tight, bass-heavy miasma that creates a thick wall of sound that is in a near-constant state of falling on top of the listener. In addition, the vocals of lone original member Conrad "Cronos" Lant are no longer a combination of ugly growls and wild shrieks but are now monotonous near-Death utterances that, combined with the bludgeoning sound, make me think of Wargasm’s Why Play Around? On the one hand, who can’t use a little more late-80s Thrash that doesn’t sound like every other band of the day? I certainly enjoyed shouting along with Wargasm’s Rich Spillberg when he sang "til he wound up knee deep...knee deep in blood!!" back in ‘88. On the other hand, I am going to miss the punk-fueled insanity of Venom classics like "Black Metal" and "Warhead" that always had a more Sex Pistols/Motörhead vibe than anything else that came out of the NWOBHM. Vive la difference, I guess.

From the Very Depths is pretty good and I’ve enjoyed spinning it these last few days but I might not have realized it was Venom had I not known who it was I was listening to. They come closest to the Venom of old with tracks like "Long-haired Punks" and "Grinding Teeth" but as these are only two songs out of 14 on the album I’ll have to be content comparing Venom to Wargasm (meant as a great compliment) which is weird considering how many bands I’ve personally compared to old Venom.