Venom Prison have released their new single Nemesis, taken from their forthcoming album Erebos, due 4 February through Century Media.
“This song is about the urge to hurt the person who has caused you irreparable harm,” the band say, “and has changed your life forever. It deals with having been left to fix the damage done to you all by yourself.
“This specifically relates to experiencing narcissistic abuse and the trauma resulting from it.”
“Narcissists tend to pick empaths as their victims,” the band say, “because they are emotional sponges who can absorb feelings from other people easily, and this makes them very attractive to narcissists as these people will fulfil all of their needs in a selfless way.
“This results in a parasitic relationship. With Nemesis, we wanted to capture the emotions of aggression, determination and pain in a more traditional Venom Prison manner. Bringing you brutal moments, energetic pace, and the headbanging assault of Heavy Metal.”
Nemesis follows on the back of the second single Pain Of Oizys, released before Christmas. “The second offering by Venom Prison is a cold room with a dusty piano,” guitarist Ben Thomas said. “It’s a softly sung war hymn with finger-picked guitar. It’s a ship in calm seas watching for the storm on the Horizon.
“Pain Of Oizys will lull you into a false sense of security. Unique to venom Prison’s previous releases, the instrumentation is not what you would expect.
“Glassy reverberated guitars and cold piano notes lay the foundation for clean sung harmonies. Pain Of Oizys climaxes with synthy leads, strings and aggressive vocal chants. Leaving them feeling empowered with the lyrical conclusion whilst the intensity of the song winds down.”
“The song is about coming to terms with depression, trauma and PTSD,” lead vocalist Larissa Stupar said. “Accepting it as part of who I am and rather living life with it than not living at all. It’s about finding strength in suffering and not giving up.
“Every day is a new day, every day comes with its struggles, but ultimately I don’t want to bow to these demons in my head. I wish for it to end and to find peace even in the most difficult of situations.”
Judges Of The Underworld was the first song released from the new album. “Judges Of The Underworld deals with the crippling reality of people who face incarceration, who oftentimes are followed by violence over a lifetime,” Venom Prison said.
“This violence can present itself as a dominating factor in a context of structural poverty and racial inequality, creating roles in an individual’s life where they are not only the victim but also witness and offender at different times in different situations. But the violence we address in our courts and prisons is judged out of social context and can therefore not lead to a fair and personalised resolution for people who are stuck in a cycle of violence and systematic oppression.
“It was important for us to visualise this feeling of isolation, anxiety, and repeated violence in the music video for Judges Of The Underworld, and the idea was to show an individual that is stripped down to their basic needs and instincts.”
“Consumed by their helplessness to navigate in an everyday situation, feeling isolated within themselves whilst going under in a sea of people that face similar conditions. This is where Thomas Coe Brooker comes in as a director and cinematographer. With his unique eye for detail, he was able to bring out this combative helplessness and aggressiveness of said individual.
“He was able to convey the feeling of being alone in a crowd, suffering the same fate as many others, where isolation becomes your existence and a vicious cycle of your life at the hands of systematic violence.”
All videos have been directed and produced by Thomas Coe-Brooker.
Erebos can be pre-ordered from https://venomprison.lnk.to/Erebos.
Venom Prison
Larissa Stupar – lead vocals
Ash Gray – guitar
Ben Thomas – guitar
Mike Jefferies – bass
Joe Bills – drums
