Think of Venom and it’s impossible to overlook the trio of classic albums with which the band made their name – Welcome To Hell, Black Metal, and At War With Satan. However, the band – once mercilessly derided for their primitive sound – have continued to up the ante over the course of their career and here, on Into Oblivion, they deliver a concise, thirteen-track album that pays glorious tribute to their 40+ years’ service to the Gods rock ‘n’ roll.
The album opens with the brutal, mid-tempo churn of the title track With Cronos’ formidable bark to the fore, these days sat somewhere between Rob “The Baron” Miller and Al Jourgensen, it’s a formidable mix of scabrous punk and evil groove – exactly what you want from Venom in 2026.
Venom maintain momentum with the ludicrously entertaining and self-referential Lay Down Your Soul, which offers fan service in the form of a lyrical nod to one of their best-known tracks. It’s followed by the crunchy, Motorhead-esque Nevermore, which rattles along nicely as Cronos batters Edgar Allen Poe into submission. It’s a cool track but it is, nevertheless, kicked firmly into touch by the addictive chug of Man And Beast, which sounds so much like latter-day Darkthrone as to bring the chain of inspiration between the two bands full circle.
Next up, the band hit hard with evil rocker Death The Leveller, which incorporates some dense lead work in between the acid-etched riffs. The band slow the pace with the doom-laden proto-thrash of As Above, So Below, which nods to Seasons-era Slayer with its punishing opening, Satanic lyrics, and deft tempo changes. The band stay in hard thrash mode on the propulsive Kicked Out of Hell, which arrives on the back of a scything riff and a thunderous performance behind the kit from Dante. It’s also Dante who kicks off Legend, a track that seems to just keep getting heavier, all squealing pinch harmonics amidst Chronos’ percussive rasp.
An album highlight, Live Loud, is a seriously groovy slab of metal, complete with a lyric worthy of Lemmy himself: “live loud, live fast, and fuck the rest”. With dizzying leads and tinnitus-inducing drums, it’s a true metal anthem and it’s followed by the dense Metal Bloody Metal which, with its Sabbath-aping title and hulking great guitars, is similarly guaranteed to get the head banging.
Swathed in noise, the splenetic Dogs Of War is a demented slab of evil noise, sounding for all the world like a black mass recorded inside a video game arcade. With a dirty riff that packs a serious wallop, it’s pretty damn awesome… As is Deathwitch, which has an addictive riff and gang chant chorus. This none-more-brutal album wraps up with Unholy Mother. A slower, more nuanced piece complete with synth stabs and just a touch of (whisper it) melody, it brings Welcome To Oblivion to a satisfying close.
While Venom have never been afraid to change things up over the course of their career, at their core they remain the same evil-minded noiseniks who first inspired a genre with Welcome To Hell and, of course, the ubiquitous Black Metal. As such, you probably already know if you like this album. Nevertheless, you may rest assured that Into Oblivion is a very good Venom album and it finds these recalcitrant rockers in fine form as they rattle through thirteen tracks of heavy fucking metal. 8.5/10
