Venom "Welcome to Hell"

Welcome to Hell is the debut studio album by English heavy metal band Venom. It was released in December 1981, through Neat Records, at the culmination of the new wave of British heavy metal movement. The music of Welcome to Hell is often described as speed metal, but it had a great influence on the then-emerging thrash metal style, and crystallised the elements of what later became known as death metal and black metal.

The sound of the album is very noisy and rough, perhaps in part because the band thought they were recording a demo when they recorded it over a period of only three days. According to author Dayal Patterson, Welcome to Hell might be the first black metal album.

The album was re-issued in 1998 by Combat Records and was re-released by Sanctuary Records in 2002.

British journalist Geoff Barton stated in his 1981 five-star review of Welcome to Hell that the album had "the hi-fi dynamics of a 50-year-old pizza", and that it "brought a new meaning to the word 'cataclysmic'". According to AllMusic journalist Eduardo Rivadavia, highlights of the album include "Welcome to Hell", "In League with Satan", "One Thousand Days in Sodom" and "Witching Hour"; Rivadavia said of "Witching Hour": "Possibly Venom's single most important track, in it you'll hear a number of stylistic devices which would later pervade all extreme metal genres, indeed become their most regularly abused clichés." Canadian journalist Martin Popoff wrote that "Welcome to Hell got a certain fabulously stupid impetus to it, despite the sub-bootleg quality recording, and Cronos quickly establishing himself as the most annoying voice in rock"; it should be considered "a record of historical metal relevance", but "not the band's most listenable product".

Track listing
All tracks written by Bray/Dunn/Lant.

Side A

1. "Sons of Satan" 3:38
2. "Welcome to Hell" 3:15
3. "Schizo" 3:34
4. "Mayhem with Mercy" 0:58
5. "Poison" 4:33
6. "Live Like an Angel (Die Like a Devil)" 3:59

Side B

1. "Witching Hour" 3:40
2. "One Thousand Days in Sodom" 4:36
3. "Angel Dust" 2:43
4. "In League with Satan" 3:35
5. "Red Light Fever" 5:14

- 1st pressing w/ silver and white labels (with pink lyric insert and poster).
- 2nd pressing w/ blue and white labels (with pink lyric insert and poster, some signed by all three members).
- 3rd pressing w/ red and silver labels 
- 4th pressing w/ green and silver labels (with pink lyric insert). 
- 5th pressing w/ red and silver labels (with pink lyric insert - instrumental track A4 listed as 'Instrumental Link No Words' on the lyric insert). 

Issued on black vinyl.

Recording information:
Recorded and produced at Impulse Studios, Newcastle, UK.
Mastered at Utopia Studios, London, UK. 
Co-produced by Venom (tracks A1-A5, B1-B3, B5).