von - satanic blood (1992)

since everyone's favorite satanic nazi murderer is set to be released from prison, I thought I would take the opportunity to talk some black metal. I settled on this album because one, if you know about it you get hella metal cred, two, the band is from san francisco, and three, this album is ridiculous!! funny enough though, and I didn't even realize this until after I started the review.....
....yep, thats cuddly Count Grishnackh himself wearing a Von t-shirt at his murder trial! this review was meant to be. so what kind of black metal is the preferred choice of those who enjoy burning churches and killing their friends? if you guessed "pretty messed up and evil", you would be right! Von are considered (rightly or not, I'm not sure) to be the first American black metal band, and very influencial on the second wave of black metal in Europe (also, the band Watain is named after a Von song). this is their only album (released in 1992), and the recording is exceptionally lo-fi, even by black metal standards. this sounds like it was recorded over a telephone and onto a crappy tape deck. and the music is really, really primitive and single-minded- just relentlessly hammered drums and repeated, simplistic riffs topped with growled messages of satan and.... satan. I'll be honest, when I first heard this, I was not that into it. I thought it was not dynamic enough, too repetitive, too simplistic. but that's because I was stupid, since those facts are exactly what makes this album mind-destroyingly awesome.

Von - Watain
Von - Satanic Blood