In Ancient Greek mythology, Erebos is one of the five primordial spirits, a personification of darkness born of Chaos itself. A more apt metaphor for Venom Prison’s terrifying death metal you will not find.
The Welsh bruisers are perhaps the UK’s scariest band. Their 2016 debut, ‘Animus’, turned heads and snapped necks with its grindcore-flecked brutality. Lyrically, vocalist Larissa Stupar carved images of rape culture and sexual inequality, while the front cover distilled the five-piece’s ideology with a vivid painting of a rapist’s castration.
Its 2019 follow-up ‘Samsara’ kept a bony finger on society’s pulse, but also found a flair for melody in its guitar harmonies. Almost three years later, this third album wades further in the same direction, and the end result is Venom Prison’s thrilling self-actualisation.
Conceptually, the band remain unrelentingly dark. Lead single Judges of the Underworld is the first track proper, opening ‘Erebos’ with a damning assessment of the criminal justice system, lamenting the trauma, violence and injustice that can continue long after a sentence is served. “Guilty as charged!” Stupar screams, like a goblin gargling rust.
But, in a twist, she’s backed by a clean croon to build an anthemic refrain. Similarly, Nemesis interrupts its hulking death metal pick scrapes with fleeting post-rock interludes, before Castigated in Steel and Concrete implements a lead lick so blistering yet catchy that it feels ripped from the fretboard of Bill Steer, a grindcore pioneer with both Carcass and Napalm Death.
As a result, ‘Erebos’ is easily the most accessible Venom Prison outing to date, although that never feels at odds with its arresting themes. If anything, the ambient and delicately sung opening to Pain of Oizys has exactly the level of atmospheric introspection that a song about depression and PTSD needs.
Venom Prison have long been touted as one of metal’s greatest hopes, and ‘Erebos’ justifies that hype. Equally infectious, haunting and heavy, this is “extreme” music in every sense.
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