I've always thought Venom's biggest strength was that they never seemed to care what anyone expected from them. Plenty of bands from their era either mellowed out, cleaned themselves up, or turned into museum pieces playing the same songs every night. Venom never really felt like that. Into Oblivion isn't some grand statement or late-career masterpiece, but after a few listens, I found myself enjoying it more than I expected to.

The title track got my attention right away. It's got that familiar Venom swagger, the kind of song that reminds you why they were such a big deal in the first place. "Lay Down Your Soul" was probably the one I kept coming back to most. Nothing revolutionary is going on there, just a killer hook and enough attitude to make it stick. Sometimes that's all I want from a Venom song anyway.

What surprised me was how much I ended up liking some of the deeper cuts. "Man And Beast" is built around an absolutely filthy riff, and every time it came on, I turned the volume up a little more. "Death The Leveller" has that scrappy energy that made me think of the band's earlier material, while "As Above So Below" adds a darker atmosphere without slowing everything to a crawl. Not every track lands equally hard, and there are definitely moments where the album starts to blur together, but honestly, that's never bothered me much with Venom.

I think some people are going to make the mistake of measuring this against Black Metal or Welcome to Hell. That's a losing battle before the album even starts. Those records helped shape entire genres. Nothing released in 2025 was going to have that kind of impact. The better question is whether Into Oblivion sounds like a hungry band or a tired one. To me, it sounds like a band that's still having a good time making loud, obnoxious heavy metal.

Maybe that's why the album works. It doesn't feel calculated. It doesn't feel like a group of veterans trying to prove they're still relevant. It just sounds like Venom. A little rough, a little ridiculous at times, and completely comfortable with both of those things. I won't pretend every song here is memorable, because they're not. A few tracks came and went without leaving much of an impression. Then again, every time the record started losing me, another nasty riff or one of Cronos' snarling vocals would pull me right back in.

At the end of the day, Into Oblivion probably isn't going to crack anyone's list of essential Venom albums, but I had a hell of a lot more fun with it than I expected. And honestly, that's worth something. After four decades of raising hell, the fact that Venom can still deliver a record that makes you want to crank the volume and annoy the neighbors feels like a victory in itself.

As always, remember that the celluloid fades, but the dissonance remains.