Black Metal is the second album by English heavy metal band Venom. It was released in November 1982, during the great flourishing of metal music in the UK that was the new wave of British heavy metal, and is considered a major influence on the thrash metal, death metal and black metal scenes that emerged in the 1980s and early 1990s. Although the album lent its name to the latter subgenre of heavy metal, today it is still debated if the album's music is speed metal, thrash metal or black metal. AllMusic has described it as "extreme metal", while Moynihan & Søderlind in their book affirm that the album "carved in stone some of [black metal's] essential features". Nevertheless, its lyrics and imagery were a major influence on the early Norwegian black metal scene. Background After the release and general positive reception to the band's debut album, Venom had established themselves as pariahs of the metal world. With the band having built a strong fan base in Europe following a series of successful shows, Venom would return to the studio to record their follow up sophomore effort. With vocalist and bassist Conrad "Cronos" Lant having gained more experience in the studio as an engineer, as well as the band developing a better understanding of their identity allowed Venom to better sense what they were looking to accomplish in the studio. Writing and recording As with most of Venom's early material, much of the writing was left to Lant and Dunn. Two of the songs on the album, "Buried Alive" and Raise the Dead", were written in the late 1970s and were originally intended to be on the band's debut album, however the band felt that they were unable to do the songs justice at the time of those demo recordings. Early versions of these songs can be heard on the band's 1979 Church Hall rehearsals recording, with original vocalist Clive Archer. "Buried Alive" was originally less than a minute long, and the remainder of what would be the rest of the song was used as the first half of "Raise the Dead" but with different lyrics. The band decided to rework these two songs with the final recording having "Buried Alive" extended and the ending transitioning into "Raise the Dead". With Lant's experience in the studio he took a very hands on approach with recording "Buried Alive". For the intro