VALHALLA: ‘Jack’ (Neat) April 1984

No insult intended, like, but the combination of engineer Keith Nichol and the facilities available at Impulse Studios, Newcastle, seems to produce a real wet handshake of a drum sound that even the ever-noisy Venom can’t escape.

In this instance, however, the lack of rhythmic poke is something less than a tragedy as the song itself is little more than a spiritless straggler, its tedious two-tone vocal line helped neither by keyboard fills nor sombre stabs at the ‘joanna – a fruitless attempt at drama, methinks. Tries the patience.