Soze wrote:bloodfiend wrote:Venom called themselves black metal, were quite a big band around 81-85 and most of the bands from the early Norwegian scene were influenced by them. They may not sound very much like Darkthrone, Emperor et al, but they were still the first black metal band. Others moulded it, as further bands have done since. Black metal is a very malleable genre.
Regardless of what they called themselves, they were not black metal. They may have invented the term but they did not invent the music. Bathory invented black metal as we know it, yes Venom may have been an influence for Bathory, but then so were Hell hammer, Mercyful Fate and Celtic Frost. Listen to The Return or Under The Sign Of The Black Mark by Bathory, and they're a massive step forward from Venom's sound, those albums are black metal, Venom are not.