Dancing in the Fire

Much like the old joke of Celtic Frost taking a swim in a cold lake, Venom got severely burnt by the fire they started with their beyond influential "Welcome To Hell" album. Shortly after the lukewarm reception of "At War With Satan" and the somewhat bad reviews and even poor reception of "Possessed", Cronos left. Well that was in 1987...and this comes out in 1990? I am not surprised. I mean after essentially 3 well-recieved albums and establishing a name for himself Cronos decided to play it safe in 1990 with playing a very traditional-type of Heavy Metal that is caught in a weird sort of no man's land where basically no one wants to really listen to it because of how exactly it sounds.

There are parts that are very tradtional power metal soundings in the vein of Accept/Anvil circa 1982(yes I am using old terminology that is somewhat outdated, but it's the closest thing I can think of) with hints of...Anthrax??? WTF??? It's not bad. It's an interesting style where the two different styles compliment each other as far as melodies and such go, but then when Cronos kicks in with his singing.....he sounds like fucking Blackie Lawless almost or a traditional U.S. Heavy Metal front man from L.A. in 1980. "Oh but Siggy....you are basically describing the era which he came from." WRONG! Cronos sounded like a rabid, ravenous, rancid-smelling dog compared to what was going on in the states if you remember correctly. Cronos in Venom is one thing...but Cronos solo? This is like him trying to find more acceptance of sounding more akin to fucking Chuck Billy(Testament) than sneering about all hell is breaking loose. Yes I just gave Cronos 3 or 4 different comparisons but that's how inconsistent this album is. At least with Venom you get consistency, but not here. Again, this is the sound of Cronos just wanting a bit more acceptance from the mainstream.

For the first part of the album it's really good. I mean despite the schizo-ness of the music trying to decide what it wants to be, it's enjoyable. "Fantasia" (pronounced "phan-ta-zi-a"...), "Terrorize"(very "Madhouse"-riff inspired), "Dancing In the Fire", and "Speedball" are all not very memorable songs, but at heart are catchy metal songs. For the most part I really don't find any fault with them until we hit "I'll Be Back" which takes that interesting Power/Thrash/Traditional metal sound and throws it out the window for a half-assed attempt at a power ballad. Lame. The Terminator would be pissed. Then almost right after that short bump in the road, "Vampyr" starts off with an kooky-sounding demonic intro and then gets more towards something that is more akin to Venom. Vocally Cronos is still fucking around, but musically we see this song being more concentrated. "Old Enough To Bleed" is straight-up Venom. Oh Cronos you fucking tease. "Painkiller" (no relation to the Priest) goes back to the sound on "Terrorize." "Boobytrap"....AVOID THIS FUCKING SONG BY ALL MEANS. From there on out it's hard for me to take anything from the rest of this album seriously. Ever wanted to know what it would sound like if Cronos were to do a song in the vein of John Zorn's Naked City? Listen to that. It's migraine inducing.

This is the sad part of fronting a very famous metal band for so long; you get pigeonholed. Some front men are able to move on and re-invent themselves over time. Not Cronos. Cronos is more like an older but not yet-fully matured older male who was famous in '83 but in '90 is scratching his head thinking "What happened?". "Dancing With Fire" is one of those albums that is like reminiscing of like watching porn on HBO in the 80's. You remember how fun it was as a kid to stay up late after your folks went to bed and you could ALMOST make out the scrambled pictures on the cable box, but if you tried to do it today....it wouldn't have the same effect. By all means, listen to "Dancing With Fire" if you are curious, but just keep moving on. I'm sure there is a Quorthon solo album that is way better.

For those of you that remember the 1987 Venom album Calm Before the Storm will recall that that release was an odd experiment for the band as they incorporated more commercial style metal with their black metal roots. The result was a few good songs but an overall weak album. Fans of course revolted against it so Cronos jumped the Venom ship and took guitarists Mike Hickey (better known today as Mykus on the new Venom album Metal Black) and James Claire to pursue a solo career. Venom would move on with Mantas returning and a new singer and release a new album in 1989. In 1990 Cronos would unleash his first solo album Dancing in the Fire.

Dancing in the Fire continues the experiment that Cronos began with Calm Before the Storm. It's more of a standard metal sound with some commercialism thrown in. Cronos trying to be commercial...you gotta be kidding? Don’t worry, it isn't as bad as it sounds. Actually I found myself liking this album very much. For one thing the songs are FAR better than the material found on Storm. I think its due to Cronos and crew having total freedom to write whatever they wanted without worrying about expectations implied the Venom name.

The album opens with a nice short song called Fantasia. The title is also the same name of the mythical land in the kid’s movie The Neverending Story. God I hope Cronos didn't write this song based on that movie but it is still a good song and one of the best on the album. Sadly, like Black Xmas on Storm, it clocks in under the 3 minute mark. Terrorize is a harder track but it becomes a little repetitive. The title track is great. It's slower and actually has Cronos singing! Cronos attempted to carry notes on Storm but he all out sings on some of these songs...and he ain't half bad (on this album anyway). This song is catchy and has some good guitar duels. Speedball is like the song implies, its fast and short in the spirit of Venom of old. The song I'll be Back may have a forgettable title but its a good song. It starts off with mellow singing and its melodic!?! Cronos being melodic....no way! Vampyre is a more moody track that begins with evil speaking and overall the song is more Venomish.

Sadly by track 7 the album grows a little thin and Old Enough to Bleed is a skipper. Painkiller sadly comes nowhere near the 1990 Judas Priest song of the same name but its ok. Now comes Boobytrap which is just a hilarious joke track. It actually reminds me of Van Halen with its upbeat rhythm, but of course the lyrics have the Cronos nastiness. It has funny talking and sound effects. Bad Reputation is another skipper and really acts as filler. Just a shit Thin Lizzy cover. With 14 tracks, your bound to have some shit. Hell to the Unknown is the last good song as My Girl is just pop shit. What the fuck is this? It's un-Cronoish and has to be heard to be believed. After surviving through My Girl, we are graced with a short instrumental. This instrumental would be perfect for some montage in a Rocky film. I can totally see Stallone working out to this track.....lol.

Like Venom's album Prime Evil, the CD version of Dancing in the Fire contains an extra track that is not on the vinyl version. We get a cover of At War with Satan....of course tremendously cut down from 20 minutes to 5 and a half minutes. It's actually a decent cover that gets right ot the meat and potatoes of the song.

Overall I was pleasantly surprised by this album. Sure its not earth shattering but its decent. The production is also good. When it comes to the ultimate question on whether the Cronos-less Venom album Prime Evil or the Cronos album Dancing in the Fire is better...Venom wins out but this is not bad. They guitar playing is better than Storm but Hickey is just no Mantas....but he's acceptable here. Sadly, like almost the entire Neat Records catalogue, this album is out-of-print and extremely hard to come by. As a Venom fan, I found this CD worth the hunt.

How often have we disparaged a band who carried on just a few albums too long - you know where their style is radically changed, but they keep the old name to sell a few more records and squeeze a few more bucks out of the fans via "name recognition". We could all name more than a few, I'm sure (and that's just in the letter "M"...). It's refreshing to see a band who has the savvy to know when to change the moniker, which is exactly what Venom did when they mutated into Cronos. Venom's 'last' studio album before the 1988/89 breakup, "Calm Before the Storm", saw the band moving radically away from the crude, primitive black metal they had pounded out from day one. Mantas had been replaced by TWO guitarists and the songs had taken a more poppy/catchy/thrashy/mainstream bent - good for what they were, I suppose, but held back by two things: Abaddon's less-than-stellar drumming and the Venom name. Fortunately, Conrad Lant knew when to cut his losses. He got rid of both albatrosses, found a new drummer, and moved his stage name over into the 'band name' position and voila - Cronos is born.

Well, as you may have gathered from the above, the music on Cronos' first album, "Dancing in the Fire", isn't all that far from where Venom was going on "Calm..." - the songs are definitely metal, from mid tempo to thrashy, but there's a lot more of a mainstream/traditional bent to everything, even more so than on the 'last' Venom album. However, it works well - I get the impression Cronos (the man) was holding back, trying to keep this new direction in the 'Venom' vein back on "Calm...", but once free of the Venom name he could let the style flourish on its own. The riffs are really straightforward, nice and catchy, and the songs are nice little streamlined, tight compositions (sometimes a bit too short for my taste, but better to leave 'em hungry than waste food, right?). And Conrad actually sings - well, still sounding like his Venom-days, in a way, but he's really hitting notes and carrying melodies (and adding vocal harmonies to the choruses - how mainstream!). The technical soloing and riffing courtesy of Mike Hickey and Jim Clare give the guitar pyrotechnicians something to chew on, and Chris Patterson's drumming helps keep everything varied and energetic (as good as he is at what he does, there's no way Abaddon could pull this stuff off). Overall, the best reference point would be the song "Chanting of the Priests" from the Venom live album and "Calm...".

Basically, the point is that if you go in expecting 'Venom' (i.e. the guys who brought you Welcome to Hell), you'll be disappointed, but if you want to hear some good, catchy thrash/power metal, you'll dig it. However, they do appease the old Venom fans on this one by including (on the CD) a cover of "At War With Satan" - not the FULL version, unfortunately, but the first six or so minutes - still pretty neat.

(Originally published at LARM (c) 1999)