NME are well known because:
a) A member murdered his mum (fuck!), which had some people pulling the "Satan's Revenge" comp off of their shelves, which probably pissed off Running Wild.
a) Ripping off Venom in each and every musically imaginable possibility.
a) Not unlike Necrophagia, they have been newly embraced through the power of a re-release, and a strong propaganda campaign.

People tend to forget that NME stink though! And not just because they have a song dedicated to Mel Gibson (OK, 'Road Warrior' did reign supreme, but still…). The lyrics are usually quite decent ('Black Knight' especially, and the Venom rip off 'Louder than Hell' is nifty), but the music is uninspired. The Venom similarities are over the top at times, indeed, and the vocals are decent because of that - but there's just ZERO power behind the riffs.

NME pulled off the mysterious image, they freaked some people out (they really were the first black metal band to go way over the top - didn't they have a swastika on their demo even?), but there's much worthier albums ('War and Pain' for example) that should be checked out MUCH before 'Unholy Death'

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