Bathory has long been an enigma of the Heavy Metal world. His “one man” approach to making heavy metal music was unique at the time, recording virtually everything on his recordings himself. This is Bathory’s debut album, also titled Bathory.
The album starts with the usual creepy intro before some of the rawest tunes ever committed to tape are unleashed upon the listener. The vocals sound like they were recorded in a pit, whilst singer “Quorthorn” was getting strangled within an inch of his life. This is the next step in extremity after Venom’s debut album and masterpiece “Black Metal”. It’s hard to know what was going in Qurothorn’s head at the time but this to mind is a re-working of what Venom were doing, there was a bit of Motorhead and maybe some punk sensibilities (Especially with the DIY thing) and moving it up notch in terms of the darkness and satanic imagery. When you look a the music I don’t think he was doing anything beyond what Venom were doing but due to the low quality recording it definitely sounds more extreme.
You also would have to put yourself back into the shoes of the underground metal fan of the time. At almost the same time you have Hellhammer put out their debut album and not far behind Sodoms “Obsessed by Cruelty” all showcasing a much rawer tone in their recordings. With this you basically had a movement that would inspire virtually the entire Scandanavian Black Metal movement.
For what its worth I think this album is pretty cool. Sure its a bit of a Venom rip off, but it set the stage for hundreds of young European bands who couldn’t afford the same studios that say Metallica or Slayer cold but still heralded a way for those bands to record on the cheap and distribute their own music and hae it considered accpetable. This established Bathory as pioneers of the Black Metal scene and set the stage for some of the greatest Black Metal (Or even Metal in general) to be later recorded by the band.
For what its worth I think this album is pretty cool. Sure its a bit of a Venom rip off, but it set the stage for hundreds of young European bands who couldn’t afford the same studios that say Metallica or Slayer could, but still heralded a way for those bands to record on the cheap and distribute their own music and have it considered accpetable to do so. This album established Bathory as pioneers of the Black Metal scene and set the stage for some of the greatest Black Metal (Or even Metal in general) to be later recorded by the band.
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