On their first album in eight years, UK black metal trailblazers Venom deliver their best material since their ’80s heyday. Conrad “Cronos” Lant implores us to prostrate ourselves before the gods of rock ’n’ roll on the lead single “Lay Down Your Soul,” a deliberate echo of the band’s 1982 NWOBHM classic “Black Metal.” The thundering “Nevermore” channels Edgar Allan Poe as guitarist Stuart “Rage” Dixon and drummer Danny “Dante” Needham carve off a galloping beat. “Kicked Outta Hell” is the kind of early-’80s speed metal that Venom inspired Metallica and Anthrax with back in the day, while the moody opening of “As Above So Below” sets the stage for an alchemical conjuring.