Richmond metal-punk trio BAT have opened their archive for a tribute rooted in the earliest language of extreme metal. Their previously unreleased version of VENOM’s “Live Like an Angel (Die Like a Devil)” is now available after remaining unheard for more than a decade.
The recording was made in 2015, during the period surrounding BAT’s first full-length chapter, and it was kept outside the group’s regular releases. According to the band’s label announcement, Ian Whalen and Yavé Rust handled the recording, Joel Grind mixed and mastered it, and the session involved drummer Felix Griffin. Its delayed release gives the track the character of a recovered document rather than a newly assembled studio exercise.
A direct line back to VENOM
BAT’s sound has always drawn strength from the rough edge where heavy metal, punk and speed metal meet. A VENOM cover therefore feels less like a stylistic detour and more like an acknowledgement of the vocabulary that helped make the group possible. The choice of “Live Like an Angel (Die Like a Devil)” also leaves little room for polish: its appeal depends on momentum, abrasion and the sense that the performance might outrun the recording.
Ryan Waste has described VENOM and Conrad “Cronos” Lant as foundational influences on both his own playing and BAT. The group’s early live sets made that connection visible through covers of bands including VENOM and MOTÖRHEAD. This archival version carries that lineage into the present while honoring the musician whose work helped define a more primitive and confrontational form of metal.
Why the age of the recording matters
Because the track dates from 2015, it captures BAT closer to the beginning of their recorded story. That context matters. It is not a contemporary remake designed to reproduce an old sound with modern precision. It is a performance created when the band were still turning their influences into a distinct identity, then left in the vault as their catalogue developed.
The release also illustrates how tribute music can work best when the connection is specific. BAT are not approaching the song from a distance. The clipped attack, distorted bass and punk economy already belong to the same family tree. What changes is the perspective: material once recorded as an influence is now being shared as an explicit salute.
An archival release with current weight
The cover is available through the band’s official channels and Bandcamp. For listeners, it offers a compact bridge between the first wave of extreme metal and a younger group that absorbed its physical energy without treating it as museum material.
BAT’s version does not need to replace or update the original. Its purpose is different: to show where the band came from, to preserve a performance that had been hidden for years, and to put that performance into circulation at a moment when its influence can be heard as part of a living continuum.
Official source: Nuclear Blast Records.
Featured image: Jaime Sainte Marie / Unsplash, used under the Unsplash License. Illustrative concert photograph; it does not depict BAT.
