Album review: Venom – Into Oblivion

There's a joke in Newcastle that you either die a hero, or you live long enough to become the guitarist in Venom. The Geordie diabolists can lay claim to being one of the most influential bands in metal history, birthing a genre (or at least naming it, with 1983's Black Metal), and making young pups in Metallica among many others wanting to go faster, harder and louder. These days, it's also all become complicated, resulting in this version featuring legendary frontman Conrad ‘Cronos’ Lant, and Venom Inc, formed of original drummer and guitarist Anthony ‘Abaddon’ Bray and Jeff ‘Mantas’ Dunn, and currently featuring nobody who played on Black Metal or Welcome To Hell. Even so, there's still a potent black magic about their name(s), if not always the music, this side of the 21st century.

It's pleasing, then, that Into Oblivion is the best thing to bear the Venom name since the ’80s. Though you wouldn't exactly want them to update their clattering, unrefined racket, there is a fresh tang here. At times, the beefed-up guitars land them not a million miles from Venom obsessives High On Fire, only if they were running on speed and Satan. See the muscular intro and double-time thrust of the title-track, or the chunky, mid-paged Man & Beast.

Cronos himself sounds suitably demonic. His howls on Death The Leveller, and wild-eyed yelling of Metal Bloody Metal's title are as deranged as you'd want, while on Kicked Outta Hell he sounds like the biggest hooligan in Hades. On the self-referential Lay Down Your Soul, with its speedy riffs, he sounds as fired up as he did the first time he demanded you ‘Lay down your souls to the gods rock’n’roll’ on Black Metal. Is his gravelly retelling of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven on Nevermore ridiculous? Of course it is. Why wouldn't you want that?

It's big, loud, unrefined and in league with Satan. For such a wicked man, Cronos has done good here.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: High On Fire, Slayer, Midnight

Into Oblivion is out now via BMG