Welsh death metallers Venom Prison have announced a new album titled Erebos, due out on February 4, 2022 via Century Media.
Earlier this year, the band's vocalist Larissa Stupar spoke to Metal Hammer about the new material, telling us it will be "a new kind of Venom Prison," but that you’ll "still definitely recognise" the band. "It’s the beginning of a new phase for us – we’ve been around for 6/7 years and we’re only just getting started," she added.
Elaborating on the recording process over the pandemic, she told us: "It was great experience being able to be creative where this was the only thing that kept us sane and alive, where we couldn’t go and do anything else, so we profited from it just in a mental sense. We can’t wait for people to experience it!"
On working with producer Scott Atkins, Stupar said: "Scott [Atkins] has been recording all the Cradle of Filth records for years now, but we’re also big fans of Stampin’ Ground so we’ve wanted to work with him for years.
"Scott was a huge help in figuring out which parts really needed to be repeated and were too good to only use once. He refined our sound and made it less chaotic – you can expect to hear every instrument and element really well, which I think we really needed. If I compare this to our previous work, sometimes I don’t think we had the space or gave time for some parts of the song had time to breathe."
In the latest issue of Metal Hammer, Stupar revealed more on the topics that inspired the album, noting: “The new record will touch on incarceration a lot. Some of it is inspired by the fact we’re not able to walk around as freely as we used to, but also because of everything happening in the outside world.
"With the BLM protests in America, being able to dive into the racism that our societies are facing as well as other elements of marginalisation that plays into incarceration in a vicious cycle. I really wanted to dive deeper and explore that – I wanted to show everything is connected and the only way to break the cycle is to tear up the roots of racism, sexism and misogyny.
"That’s the main point of the album – but I also like to pick up personal things, like we’ve lost family members over the past few years and there are elements of depression and anxiety in there too.”
The album – which will serve as the follow up to 2020's Primeval – arrives with typically gory artwork that displays a sinister stack of fleshy bodies, painted by renowned artist Eliran Kantor, who has worked with Venom Prison on previous albums.
In a statement, the band say: "Being able to work with our dear friend Eliran on another piece of art for Venom Prison has been exciting as always. Kantor knows the band perfectly well to capture our music and poetry into a visual masterpiece every single time.
"Erebos was a personal one for both Eliran Kantor and ourselves. This artwork captures the moment a young person dies inside as they are surrounded by horror. In the moment their innocence is lost and desensitisation will from now on fuel the repetition of the cycle of violence in their life. This is Erebos the one born from chaos.”
Erebos' first single is set to be released soon. Be sure to check back for updates.
