Venom

A foundational force in the development of extreme metal, Venom stood at the forefront of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Taking cues from Motörhead’s unpolished ferocity and Kiss’s theatrical presentation, the trio forged a searing, ominous style that helped spark the thrash explosion; in parallel, their grim and overtly satanic persona—embodied by the groundbreaking first album Welcome to Hell—supplied a potent template for the wave of death and black metal acts that followed, even supplying the genre’s very designation through the 1982 release of the pivotal sophomore effort Black Metal. Weathering repeated lineup shifts and considerable internal friction across the decades, the band persisted with live performances and fresh recordings, delivering their fifteenth studio album, Storm the Gates, in 2018.

Venom coalesced in Newcastle, England, in 1978 and underwent several early adjustments before locking in the central three-piece of vocalist and bassist Conrad “Cronos” Lant, guitarist Jeff “Mantas” Dunn, and drummer Tony “Abaddon” Bray. Drawing from an eclectic pool that encompassed Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Sex Pistols, the Who, the Tubes, and Elvis Presley, the group favored raw momentum over instrumental refinement, crafting a blisteringly rapid approach to sonic malevolence that overlapped with hardcore punk as readily as it did heavy metal—although their lyrics and imagery remained fixated on the devil, the members have repeatedly emphasized shock value rather than literal Satanism. The band unveiled its debut, Welcome to Hell, in 1981 on Neat Records. Crude, abrasive, and saturated with malevolent energy, that record together with the equally ferocious follow-up Black Metal (1982) helped lay groundwork for both death metal and thrash, even though neither achieved immediate commercial dominance; both later earned canonical status within the heavy-metal world. The conceptual At War with Satan, dramatizing a cosmic conflict between heaven and hell, surfaced in 1983, succeeded in 1985 by the comparatively streamlined Possessed, whose title track earned inclusion on the Parent Music Resource Center’s “Filthy Fifteen” roster. Those releases grazed mainstream visibility, yet Venom’s high-velocity brand of the genre was already being refined by rising contemporaries such as Slayer, Megadeth, and Metallica—bands that had, only a few years prior, supported Venom on tour.

Following the 1986 live album Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Mantas departed, opening the door for guitarists Matt Hickey and Jimmy Clare, who appeared on their first studio outing with the 1987 album Calm Before the Storm. Further personnel flux persisted into the ensuing decade; Cronos exited prior to 1989’s Prime Evil, bringing Hickey and Clare along to pursue solo work. That record featured Abaddon alongside ex-Atomkraft singer and bassist Tony “The Demolition Man” Dolan, guitarist Al Barnes, and the returning Mantas. This revised Venom configuration—minus Barnes, later supplanted by guitarist Steve “War Maniac” White—produced two additional albums, Temples of Ice (1991) and The Waste Lands (1992), both of which received scant attention amid the ascent of grunge and alternative rock. The Mantas-Abaddon-Dolan lineup continued to perform through the mid-nineties, though no new studio material emerged during that stretch.

Cronos’s 1996 return delighted supporters and prompted Dolan’s exit, resulting in 1997’s Cast in Stone—the first Venom full-length in twelve years to showcase the original lineup—and was preceded by the EP Venom ’96. The reunion proved brief; after a global tour supporting the album, Abaddon departed. Cronos recruited his brother Antony “Antton” Lant on drums for the tenth studio album, 2000’s Resurrection. Antton remained through Metal Black (2006) and Hell (2008), yet Abaddon’s absence and a succession of guitarists left Cronos as the lone founding member. Further complicating matters, in 2014 Jeff “Mantas” Dunn, Tony “Demolition Man” Dolan, and Tony “Abaddon” Bray launched their own venture, Venom Inc., which issued its debut album, Avé, via Nuclear Blast in 2017. Meanwhile, Cronos’s Venom—now featuring guitarist La Rage and drummer Dante—signed with Spinefarm and released 2011’s Fallen Angels. The band’s fourteenth studio album, From the Very Depths, appeared in 2015, with Storm the Gates following three years later. In 2019 BMG issued the expansive box set In Nomine Satanas, containing deluxe editions of the first four studio albums recorded by the classic Cronos-Mantas-Abaddon lineup, along with the 1986 concert recording Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.