Lay down your soul to the gods rock ‘n’ roll! VENOM

It is with immense joy and great pride we present the ultimate godfathers of Black Metal, none other than the mighty VENOM.

Venom has been on top of our wish list for years, being a festival of our kind with a heavy emphasis on extreme metal; it feels like coming full circle with the actual founders of the genre topping the bill of our eleventh festival.

Their impact is enormous and this quote from Wikipedia says it all:

Welcome to Hell influenced “literally thousands” of bands. Venom’s music helped shape the development of many thrash metal bands, specifically the Big Four of Thrash (who in turn were highly influential): Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth (Metallica opened for Venom on an early 1980s tour and Slayer played with them on the Combat Tour in 1985). Venom would also be of extreme importance to the black metal and even the early death metal scene, with numerous bands copying styles, themes and imagery from the band.

Venom came to prominence towards the end of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and is widely regarded for their seminal classics Welcome to Hell (1981) and Black Metal (1982). The band has continued releasing cracking albums to this date, with their latest opus being Hell from 2008.

Photo by Pablo Villagra

Needless to say, this will be an event to remember.

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