Standing inside 229 London, it felt like I’d been thrown back in time. Not just to the origins of extreme metal, but to my own teenage years in the Midwest. The second that low-end rumble kicked through the PA, I was right back there. Hiding Welcome to Hell under my mattress. Waiting for my parents to leave so I could crank it to deafening levels. Finding something pure and furious in the noise when everything else felt like a trap.
Black metal got its name from Venom. Simple as that. The Black Metal album in 1982 gave a word to something primal. Unpolished production, Satanic bluster, and no concern for taste or permission. It was the blueprint. Norwegian bands would go on to make it colder and more calculated, but Venom lit the match.
Venom Inc. started in 2015 with Jeff “Mantas” Dunn, Anthony “Abaddon” Bray, and Tony “Demolition Man” Dolan, who fronted Venom during their heaviest and most overlooked stretch in the late eighties and early nineties. That run — Prime Evil, Temples of Ice, The Waste Lands — hit me just as hard as the early records. Mantas and Abaddon aren’t in the lineup now. These days, Dolan is joined by Marc “JXN” Jackson on drums and Curran “Beleth” Murphy on guitar. What they’ve built together doesn’t feel like a replacement. It just feels alive.
This was my first time seeing them, and the fire’s still there. Venom Inc. just sounded like a killer band. No legacy act vibe, no trying to relive anything. They were locked in and hit hard. Dolan owned the stage. Jackson locked everything down. And Curran Murphy is one of the best players I’ve seen in years. No flash. No bullshit. Just weight, tone, and presence. He didn’t polish anything. He just made it hit harder.
They held the early stuff until later, which somehow made it land even harder. When “Live Like an Angel (Die Like a Devil)” kicked in, it felt like the floor shifted. From Black Metal, they nailed “Countess Bathory” and the title track. Both sounded just as feral as they should. They also played “Blackened Are the Priests” from Prime Evil. Decades later, it still hits with the same ferocity.
Dolan owns these songs. He wasn’t the original voice, but you wouldn’t know it watching him live. He delivers them with total command. It doesn’t feel like a tribute. It feels like someone who helped shape the monster getting back behind the wheel.
Venom Inc. have released two standout records on Nuclear Blast, with There is Only Black being my favourite hands down. The songs from that album were where the band really came alive. Fast, heavy, and pissed off — exactly how the best metal should sound.
Mid-set, Al Barnes, guitarist on Temples of Ice, stepped in for “Temples of Ice” and “Tribes.” The crowd surged. It wasn’t billed as a reunion, but it sure felt like one. Everything locked in tight. There was no pose or ceremony to it. Just riff after riff landing like punches.
That final run of songs hit like a warning shot from hell. Closing out the night with “In League With Satan” and “Black Metal,” both still hit like a boot to the chest. Not a nostalgia trip, but a band in full control of their legacy, dragging it into the now. Venom’s influence isn’t something that lives in books or documentaries. It’s still crawling through the speakers and into the bloodstream.
Walking out onto the street, half-deaf and hoarse, I thought about that teenage version of me again. The angry kid who pissed off his parents blasting this band, who didn’t care about scenes or subgenres, just about how the music made him feel. That kid would be proud. Proud that this music still hits hard. Proud that it still draws blood.
And somewhere out there, right now, some fourteen-year-old is putting on Black Metal for the first time. Parents yelling through the floorboards. Volume getting pushed higher. That first hit of rebellion taking hold. The cycle starts again.
