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Being a newcomer to the world of Venom (shut up), I can approach this album from a different perspective than long time fans who were seemingly disappointed by it. In short, this album kills. While not sounding like the early Venom classics, it is still an in-your-face release of non-pussified metal that doesn't need to use artifices such as keyboards to get the job done. The guitars are crunching and heavy, the drums are powerful and admirably played, and Cronos' vocals show that you don't need to growl unintelligibly to achieve an evil, haunting effect. Youngsters, take note!

The album contains 14 songs so I won't cover them all here. Some outstanding songs are the opener "Resurrection" with very aggressive guitar work, a great intro to what is essentially a very aggressive album. "War Against Christ", which contains a lot of tempo changes and has kind of "angelic" (for lack of a better word) backing vocals that create a great effect. Worth noting is how Cronos rolls his "R"'s, it's a minor detail but I found it adds some punch to a couple of songs on the album. Other songs worth mentioning are the very fast "Pain", "Pandemonium" and "Black Flame (of Satan)". Actually there isn't much I dislike on this album so I might as well stop enumerating all the songs! ;) Songs that I find "so so" include "Control Freak" and "Man Myth & Magic", both of which I'm having a hard time getting into compared to the rest of the album - they're still pretty good though.

Overall this is a very strong metal album that doesn't get into any trend, unlike what some older bands have offered us over the past couple of years. Even the weaker track are pretty killer stuff, so this is by all means a very good release. Die hards of the early Venom stuff will have a hard time with it, but a newcomer such as myself (I said shut up) shouldn't have too much trouble getting into it and appreciating it simply as a great metal album.