Today, Venom release their new album Into Oblivion. Having followed the band for many years as a diehard fan, I approached the record with high expectations, and it does not disappoint. Here, we dig deeper into the album with the guitarist Stuart ‘Rage’ Dixon, and readers have the chance to win a vinyl copy of the album courtesy of Noise/BMG.
Rage is excited, with that perfect Northern humour too. “I forgot what it was like, it’s been eight years,” he says. “The reason we took eight years is because we’re complete northern lazy bastards.”
The truth is that COVID and recording issues hampered things. ” Britain during lockdown wasn’t a very nice place,” Rage says. “We obviously had to get back to doing festivals to get some income. Then we had a massive problem with the drums. We were just about to start on the guitars, but there was a problem with one of the microphones that we’d used to record. So the high hat was knackered, or broken for international viewers.”
While that was devastating, there was an upside. Venom sometimes made demos, but usually they would enter the studio with ideas. “We never do complete songs normally. We get in the room and get jamming on it. But we’d actually finished complete songs this time.”
The band listened back, realising they had moved on from the initial ideas, but found what they were missing. “There was a lot of atmospheric stuff, like on Unholy Mother. We had been experimenting with different delay pedals, and we sort of missed them when we were recording them. It was like, no, that was the coolest bit of the song. So we went back. I think it’s worked out. The universe has said, boys, it was good, but not good enough.”
BMG have been very proactive with Venom and Into Oblivion, and the feedback for Rage has been awesome. “Everybody says it’s the best thing I’ve ever done,” Rage says. “I haven’t said that about this album, but I just think the songwriting’s so much stronger than the last.
“I think there are songs on this album that other Venoms wouldn’t have done. I don’t think they would have done As Above So Below and Unholy Mother. I don’t think they would have risked it. I think it just shows you how strong we are as songwriters. This band’s been going for 17 years, so it’s a bit like the pinnacle of this version of Venom.”
Those two tracks mentioned were finished during COVID, though subsequently rearranged. “Sometimes you’ll come up with something that you think’s an amazing chorus,” Rage says, “but actually it works better as a verse and swapping things around.”
Lay Down Your Souls was recorded after the release of Fallen Angels, though there were no vocals as “nothing would sit with it.” This became a problem solved. Live Loud came from “Dante messing around on the drums, and I’ll just play something random.”
Legend was an idea on a dictaphone. “Cronos uses the old dictaphones that the journalists used to use. Proper old school.”
Of the 13 songs on the album, eight were demos, and five came from rough ideas.”You might come up with an A, B, C where you think the song goes, but the drummer changes it, or the vocalist changes it, and that’s where it becomes a song,” Rage says. “That’s what we were missing from the COVID tape. COVID tapes, that’s what it’s now gonna be known as, exclusive for MetalTalk[ laughs].
“We jam, and that’s where we get the vibe from. That’s why it sounds so live, because it’s just amplifiers and we didn’t use a click track. I jam with Dante to get his drums down, and then we just put the bits on top.”
Across the album, there is a real sense of pacing and structure. “Cronos will have an idea of what he thinks, because he’s producing most of the stuff,” Rage says. “We knew Into Oblivion was going to be first, As above was always going to be in the middle, and Uhholy Mother was always going to be last. We went through the ideas of how the set list for the album was going to be and never changed. It was just like, yeah, that, that strangely works. I like Metal, Bloody Metal near the end because it’s Heavy Metal disco, isn’t it?
“It is literally Heavy Metal disco, it makes you want to dance.”
The balance between modern production, clarity, while keeping that raw, old-school edge that Venom is known for, is down to using “real amplifiers and real basses and real drums.
“We don’t use samples on the kicks or anything like that, which is quite popular, and I understand it. I love loads of bands who do that. But not using the click was the major one because you always get the click and tick tick tick tick all the way through.
“But this time it meant that when the fast bits come on, you naturally wanted to sprint, and then when the slow bits come on, you wanted to really drag them back in. Sometimes you can’t do that. It takes a lot of work to do it with a click, ‘cos you’ve got to map everything out.
“So we didn’t use a click. It was really hard recording, because things like pushing and pulling, you’ve got to get in. I record four guitars on every rhythm track, and you’ve got to try and make them tight.”
For Into Oblivion Rage says he brought more songs to the album than on Storm The Gates, an album that he says he was disappointed in himself. “It was a bit of a hectic time around there. Dante got injured near the end of it. He ended up having to get spinal surgery.”
“Storm The Gates and From The Very Depths were really strong. It just felt like, not that I couldn’t come up with anything, but I just didn’t know where to turn to. With this one, it was just dead easy. I had loads of ideas, ’70s rock ideas and Death Metal. I went through a big phase of trying to put Death Metal riffs with normal drums. It was a lot more enjoyable recording it, I think I struggled a bit just before.”
The confidence is back, Rage is throwing guitar solos in, adding atmosphere and “just pushing it. We did Smoke on From The Very Depths, and that was so unusual. But then we didn’t have that sort of song on Storm The Gates. It was just a really good Venom album. There was nothing I thought was like Smoke, which was a standout track. This time I decided to write loads of standout tracks.”
Which Venom have certainly succeeded in doing. Lay Down Your Soul is a standout track, going back to the roots, alluding to the iconic Black Metal.
“I think it’s really tongue in cheek,” Rage says. “The British have a different humour to the rest of the world. Carry On films and, wink, wink, nudge nudge.
“It just flowed out. There are mentions of Witching Hour, Welcome To Hell. It’s almost like telling the older fans, don’t worry, we haven’t left you, we haven’t forgotten about you. There are loads of young kids getting involved, but we’ve still got time for you, and we still love you.”
MetalTalk will have more soon from Stuart ‘Rage’ Dixon.
In the meantime, if you live in the UK and would like to win a vinyl copy of the new Venom album Into Oblivion, email comp@metaltalk.net with the answer to the following question:
What was the name of the original Venom vocalist, who was nicknamed ‘Jesus Christ’? He performed on their first demo, Demon only.
A: Clive Archer B: Tony Dolan C: Conrad Lant
The draw will take place at 4 pm on Friday, 8 May 2026.
Into Oblivion will be released on May 1st, 2026 via Noise/BMG. Preorders of both vinyl and CD will come with a limited photo card, signed by Cronos, Dante and Rage, exclusively from the Noise Records store while stocks last. For more details, visit venomslegions.lnk.to/intooblivionPR.
Venom will celebrate the release of their new album Into Oblivion with a special in-store signing at Raven Records in Camden, London on 2 May 2026 at 1pm.
