German death metallers Venenum have recently unleashed their debut full length album ‘Trance Of Death’ upon the extreme music scene via Sepulchral Voice Records, a multi-faceted album full of twists and turns that will slowly coil it’s way around your senses upon listening.

We caught up with vocalist/bassist F.S.A (who joins P.T. on guitars, D.P. on guitars and keys, and F.J.L on drums) to find out more about the album and gain more of an insight into the dark musical world of this very exciting new malevolent force in death metal.

Your debut album is due to be unleashed in the near future – what can the readers expect from your first full-length offering? Immense. Intense. In trance.

Where was the album recorded? The album was recorded at Tonstudio Katzer in Nuremberg, Germany. Our new guitarist suggested Romin Katzer because he did an internship at his old studio once. Since we hadn’t made up our mind on where to record the album, we visited Romin at his new studio, which is close by where we live and instantly knew that we wanted to work with him. At first we only booked one week with the focus on getting the drum tracks … Read More

The Ajna Offensive have just announced that March 17 will mark the international release date for Venenum‘s highly-anticipated debut album, ‘Trance Of Death’, saying “It makes a difference in effort and time, either to dig six feet deep or to build a necropolis. Venenum decided for the latter…and it was worth every fucking second of waiting.”

Five years after the self-titled mini-album, Venenum strike with their debut full-length. According to the label, who will co-release the album with German death metal stable, Sepulchral Voice (the masters behind Degial and Charon); “The album presents Venenum on a new level of devotion and continues new and never-before-heard layers of darkness. The six new compositions and introduction theme are a grand melding of unique visions and unaltered traditions woven and blended into a complex unit of sacred horror. ‘Trance Of Death’ is far away from being another one-dimensional tribute to the grave: it is reverence and praise, a hymn to the impending end of all things.”

Artwork and layout is by Iron Fist favourite Timo Ketola (Dissection, Deathspell Omega).

From their debut mini-album:

Venenum by Venenum

US black metal has always suffered from a ‘Born Too Late’ mentality. Although Possessed undeniably had an influence on the second wave rage and bands like Judas Iscariot and Grand Belial’s Key flew the flag for Uncle Sam, the country has always been slow on the blackened uptake. Recently though Illinois has unleashed a darkened fury in the forms of bands like Nachtmystium, Avichi, Alehammer and now Black September. So, is Chicago the new Bergen?

“No,” is the sullen reply from guitarist Chris Morrow. “I don’t consider Black September a black metal band.” That angry answer is the most black metal response we’ve heard this issue, so we’ll beg to differ, but listeners can decide what genre, if any, BS have to be tethered to after spinning new album ‘Into Darkness’, which summons a dissonance of black metal, Stockholm death metal and English crust.

“We had so many ideas going into this record,” Chris admits. “We started writing soon after the last LP was released, we wanted to start this album exactly where we left off with the last one. ‘The Forbidden Gates Beyond’ had nothing to hide. It was unrefined and to the point. We wanted to add another level of depth … Read More