Venom welcomes you to Hell on December 12, 1981


The world is a stage for the exceptional, a battleground where the strong thrive and the weak wallow in their self-imposed mediocrity. On December 12, 1981, a new clarion call echoed for those with the ears to hear, a raw, unpolished testament to carnal instinct and aggressive self-preservation: Welcome to Hell by the triumvirate known as Venom.

Cronos, Mantas, and Abaddon—three northern English barbarians who looked as though they had clawed their way out of a Hieronymus Bosch canvas—did not “dabble” in Satanism. They WERE Satanism made flesh, leather, and decibels. And their audio recruitment office was opening on turntables and boomboxes worldwide.

“Welcome to hell,” Cronos snarls across the title track, and one does not merely hear the words; one is dragged by the hair through the gates. The production is gloriously primitive—drums like gunshots in a sewer, guitars like chainsaws carving pentagrams into cathedral doors, bass an Inner Earth pile-driver throbbing 3,959 miles down. This is not the sterile, over-polished “evil” of later pretenders who would buff their horns and file their claws for mass consumption. This is the real abyss staring back, smelling of sweat, beer, brimstone, and cheap perfume stolen from a Black Mass altar girl’s handbag.

This was not music crafted for the masses, nor for critical acclaim. It was an act of sonic terrorism. An affront. A challenge. Each track a ritual, each riff a curse. From the thundering declaration of "Sons of Satan" to the visceral, almost painfully direct "One Thousand Days in Sodom," this album didn't just hint at evil; it embraced it.

Many fools in the years that followed would claim Venom were “joking,” that their inverted crosses and goat-head stage props were mere theatrical gimmickry for shocking the parents of Newcastle. Let those cowards cling to their comforting delusion. These lads had read their Lovecraft, their Huysmans, perhaps even a dog-eared copy of The Satanic Bible passed around the rehearsal room like a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale. They understood the core truth: Satanism is not about cowering in shadows begging for power; it is about seizing power, reveling in it, and laughing while the System crumbles away.

Welcome to Hell was an unapologetic declaration of war against the pious, the meek, and the comfortably numb. It was the sound of chaos given form, a furious maelstrom of noise, speed, and uncompromising lyrical blasphemy. This was not about metaphor; it was about literal, undeniable rebellion against all that is weak and sanctimonious.

They called it "black metal" then. And indeed, it was black. Black as the abyss, black as the heart of man when truly liberated from the shackles of guilt and convention. It was the sound of self-indulgence, of power, of the id unleashed. It offered no comfort, only the fierce, exhilarating freedom of the damned.

Let your critics scoff. Let your moralizers recoil. Let the weak-willed clutch their pearls. Welcome to Hell was not made for them. It was made for the few, the proud, the ones who recognize the infernal beauty in the grotesque, the power in the profane. It laid the groundwork, a blueprint for the truly extreme, forging a path where others would later dare to tread even deeper into the darkness.

Some gates, once you open them, don’t need you to walk through again.

They’re perfectly capable of coming to you. 

Welcome to Hell wasn’t released. It escaped. And it’s still out there, looking for fresh ears.

Location: Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

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