Live Review: Venom Inc. - The Bread Shed, Manchester
Support: Krisiun, Hate, Ater
25th April 2025
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Tim Finch
The old adage about buses turning up in threes is appropriate here as, having not had a gig on the calendar since Carpathian Forest back in the middle of March, I had a trio of shows within the week. Still, not complaining as the three have all been of exceptional quality, yet it was this one that stood out on the schedule as being the most mouth-watering.
Venom Inc is making a couple of dozen stops around Europe on their Beyond the Black tour, taking with them the most exquisite of supporting bills. Shows in Dublin, Bristol and London will follow before the tour returns to the continental mainland, but Manchester has been chosen as the first UK date. It’s Friday, it’s the Bread Shed, and it’s four awesome bands; stick a tree up in the corner and you might as well call it Christmas!!!
It's got to be an early start for Chilean trio, Ater, whose short show is taken almost exclusively from their Somber album, very recently having reached its first birthday. There’s something of the Burzum about the guitars on opener Striges, Descending charges with reckless abandon as the vocals ooze and drip corruption. The album’s title track opens with some ambient acoustic strings before dropping into a grooving, symphonically supported progression. Ignis Immortalis and Saecuil Fine both dally with broad themes of the cosmic and humanity’s place in the grand scheme of things. It also gives the evening a very strong starting point.
Warsaw blackened death metal crew, Hate, buck the trend and have four members on stage, as opposed to the slew of trios on offer tonight – though is does make thirteen musicians, which you can find significant should you wish. With their thirteenth album -hmmm! – due to hit shelves on Friday, the Poles make little mention of the incoming, focusing largely on their established and esteemed existing material. From primitive black metal rhythms to complex death metal riffs, Hate blend the genres with ease. One moment it’s all about the cold atmospherics, the next the bludgeoning of fierce and fiery guitars mean the only thing left to do is windmill along with the band. Sovereign Sanctity rattles the walls of the venue, Erebos includes catchy hooks within its unrelenting progression, and The Wolf Queen is raw and savage.
The first new material is the title tune from the new record, Bellum Regiis, in which the band mix epic scope with intense musicianship; the already available tale of Iphigenia is the second new tune to be aired tonight, and its more doom-laden chug and eastern motifs act as a sorbet to the blunt force trauma of their earlier material.
Brazilian brutal death metal three-piece, Krisiun, should be included in the dictionary as the very model of resilient. Formed in 1990, the trio have not only stuck together but have maintained their devotion to the death metal cause, unwilling to compromise their aggression, becoming one of the most respected names in the extreme metal underground.
Prolifically releasing albums, splits and EPs through the first decade of their existence, the band’s output has decreased over the recent ten-year span, with only three full-length records bearing their name. Alex, Moyses and Max spread their attention across Krisiun’s millennial output for tonight show, kicking off the show with Ravager and Endless Madness Descends, both from the 2000 album, Conquerors of Armageddon. It is tonight’s most pure death assault, and delivers unbridled, uncompromising brutality from the get-go. Alex gives the introduction: “We’re Krisiun and we’re gonna play fast” and he isn’t telling an untruth. Scourge of the Enthroned wrings tortured death howls from the guitar, Necronomical has a bit of a groove going on, as Serpent Messiah, also from the most recent Mortem Solis album, finds a whirling vortex of sound and a barrage of crashing cymbals.
Hatred Inherited comes with a tribal-infused introduction and feels like something of a jam; it’s the band’s most experimental tune tonight and shows Krisiun have never only been about the aggression. Too soon and the set closes with Blood of Lions, another one showing interest in having a groove, and finishes with a drawn-out, extended coda.
Originally formed in 2015 as a regathering of the personnel responsible for the three Venom albums – and one EP – released between 1989 and 1992, Venom Inc have issued two albums under their own name and keep the flag flying for a period of one of England’s most influential bands that would otherwise be overlooked.
The thunder and lashing rain of the intro tape is a little confusing as this is Manchester and it could well signify the weather outside has turned… it hadn’t, and when the curtain drops Venom Inc blast straight into There’s Only Black, the title tune of their 2022 record. Heavy speed metal and chugging riffs, supplemented by Mantas’ replacement six-stringer, Beleth - whose beard itself should be considered the fourth member of the band – shredding like it’s still the Eighties.
The concise lighting at the Bread Shed starts to earn its crust, bathing the stage alternately in blood red or brilliant white illumination. War captures the old Venom spirit, with the Demolition Man’s bass rumbling along nicely. Come to Me shows you don’t need mega-productions to get the point across when the music can do the talking; Ave Satanas has atmosphere and hooks and shows why this band need to exist as an entity separate from their celebrated history.
Blackened Are the Priests is the first of Prime Evil’s tunes to be played, the choral vocal opening seeming to hold a more potent resonance, with the funeral of the Pope taking place tomorrow morning. The killer riff is timeless and generates much movement in the pit; Parasite has as dirty a guitar as you’ll find on any of Venom’s earlier albums, and Skeletal Dance takes no prisoners. Later the title track will sit between a couple of stone-cold classics from the early days as though it were always meant to be there.
Regardless of personnel, Temples of Ice from 1991 is still one of my very favourites of the band’s albums and I still have it on cassette from back in the day, so it was a real nostalgia trip to hear the epic, multi-faceted titular tune given an airing tonight. From here it’s a stomp through the more widely acknowledged classic catalogue, with a couple of Inc’s tracks slotted in to remind us what all this is about.
Infinitum and Time to Die are sandwiched between Welcome to Hell and In Nomine Satanas, with Countess Bathory and the obligatory Black Metal rounding things off in appropriately nihilistic style.
The three Demolition Man-era albums are scheduled for re-release by Cheery Red at the end of June, under the combined title Blackened Priests, and I’m looking forward to casting a critical ear over Prime Evil, Temples of Ice and The Waste Land, as they need to be shown more love when it comes to the whole of the Venom canon.
On this form, Candlemass will have a devil of a time following them onstage at the Bloodstock Winter shindig in December.
Photo Credits: Tim Finch Photography
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