Review Summary: A fun and great old-school metal record.
Venom Inc. was founded in 2015, initially as a reunion band featuring the core line-up of Venom (precisely, the line-up from their
Prime Evil album and subsequent era), the influential thrash metal band from the UK, known for being a huge inspiration for many first-wave black metal bands. The trio (“Demolition Man” Anthony Dolan, “Mantas” Jeffrey Dunn & “Abaddon” Antony Bray) started working on new material not long after the reunion, and presented their “debut” LP in 2017, entitled
Avé. In the next few years the band remained active (for example they toured all around the globe), so it was to be expected that Venom Inc. won’t stop at releasing a single album and go with it. This expectancy has been proven true, and Venom Inc. put together a second record:
There’s Only Black. The result was quite a pleasant experience, since personally I don’t mind a bit of old-school riffing. However,
There’s Only Black is a lot more than a second “nostalgia ride”. First of all, it’s a reasonably colorful record, as you can hear a fine blend of raspy old-school thrash with energetic speed metal and balladic heavy metal: very groovy stuff. Moreover, the emphasis on these styles varies all the time, which breaks the monotony of the record. For example, you can hear straight-up thrash riffs in songs like “How Many Can Die”, which nicely resurrects what these guys were doing in the late ‘80s, but they packed some absolute Black Sabbath-inspired slow-paced doomy/heavy metal jams (“The Dance”), and gorgeous melodic compositions too (for example in the first half of “Burn Liar Burn”). Interestingly the quite long (over fifty minutes) runtime doesn’t hurt at all, since the record feels consistent and doesn’t lose from its punchiness either. Altogether
There’s Only Black is a very pleasant record with a great replay value, and it was especially good to see that these veterans still had some unseen tricks up their sleeves.
