I don’t like black metal.
There, I said it. To me – and I accept this is an uninformed opinion, so save your emails – it is a load of blokes in corpse paint growling, yelping and trying very hard to sound like something awful is happening in a forest. I’m not that interested in being proved wrong, either.
What I do like, though, is “Black Metal”, the Venom album that gave the whole damn thing its name. That record came out 44 years ago, and here we are, all this time later, with Venom on their sixteenth studio album, “Into Oblivion”.
This is the first Venom album in eight years, and the thing about Venom in 2026 is this: they do not sound like a band chasing relevance. They sound like a band who never gave a toss about it in the first place. Cronos, Rage and Dante have now been together long enough that this version of Venom has its own history, its own chemistry. And on “Into Oblivion”, they simply plug in and let the sod go.
The title track makes that clear immediately. There is no sense of anyone forcing this. It just seems to come naturally. There is menace in the guitars, a nastiness in the air, and Cronos still sounds like a man who regards subtlety as something that happens to other people.
“Lay Down Your Soul” slashes harder. The guitars are ready for the moshpit from the off, but the God here isn’t Satan. It’s rock ’n’ roll. That is the important thing about this record, and maybe about Venom in general. For all the imagery, all the horror-show theatre, all the pentagrams in the margins, this is essentially loud, nasty, unrepentant heavy metal.
“Nevermore” underlines it. Cronos and the lads might be originators, and this might be their nightmare, but it is an accessible one. There is no intro, no faffing about, no cinematic scene-setting. It is straight in, heads down, job done. “Man & Beast” is even more telling. Strip away the scary edge and this is basically power metal with blood on its boots, and the solo is a corker.
“Death The Leveller” has the unvarnished fury of timeless NWOBHM, the sort of thing that sounds like it should be played in a room full of people in denim jackets who have never knowingly turned anything down. Then “As Above So Below” slows things down to summon Lucifer, and there’s something almost Alice Cooper about it, in the way “Cold Ethyl” works. No one really thinks he means it, but the fun is in the fact he sounds like he might.
“Kicked Outta Hell” feels like a proper descent into something nasty, while “Legend” is proof that Venom still know how to unsettle. These songs are short, sharp and built to do damage, but they aren’t one-dimensional. “Legend” is three minutes long and, no, pop this is not, but it understands structure, attack and release better than plenty who hide behind extremity because they haven’t got any songs.
“Live Loud” might be the manifesto. Turn that fucker up, Cronos yells, and like Lemmy, you know he means it. That comparison matters, because Venom at their best have always had that same sense of volume as a moral position. “Metal Bloody Metal” follows with fists up, denim and leather, if the bastard is blood-soaked. It is ridiculous, obviously. It is also brilliant.
But here’s the thing: Venom have always understood that melody matters. “Dogs Of War” proves it again. It bites, it snarls, it kicks, but there’s a tune in there. There’s shape. There’s purpose. “Deathwitch” shows they understand pace too. It barks slowly and pummels you, but like everything here, there is no excess fat. Nothing outstays its welcome. No one is hanging around admiring the scenery.
By the time “Unholy Mother” ties up the loose ends, adding further textures without losing the filth and force that got us here, the verdict is simple enough. “Into Oblivion” is a magnificent heavy metal record.
And that’s the point. Call it evil. Call it loud. Call it ugly. Call it dangerous. Just don’t call it extreme black metal to make it sound cleverer than it is. Venom don’t need false tags. They never have.
They invented half this language, then spent the next four decades refusing to tidy it up for polite company. “Into Oblivion” is proof that the old ways still work when the people playing them actually mean it.
Metal bloody metal, indeed.
RATING 9/10
