Venom – Calm Before The Storm (1987)

April 12, 2024

Calm Before The Storm marks the point where I first was bitterly disappointed with a Venom album. Gone is Mantis, replaced by “Jim and Mike”. It says a lot about a guitar player if it takes two separate people to replace you, I think. Anyway, Calm… still has Abaddon and most importantly in this regard Cronos, so it is not immediately indistinguishable as a Venom release. After a few minutes however you begin to get the feeling that something is off, and even though this is Venom in name and has Cronos barking all over it, there’s just something about it which feels false and hollow. The production is pretty bad but I’m not really bothered by that. I wasn’t a fan of this one. It feels half-arsed.