Venom

The birth of extreme metal goes through Venom. Initially part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, the classic lineup of howler and bassist Conrad “Cronos” Lant, guitarist Jeffrey “Mantas” Dunn, and drummer Tony “Abaddon” Bray unleashed a sound faster and harsher than that of their more famous peers Iron Maiden. But it wasn’t just beastly shredding and dungeon primitivism that made their 1981 debut, Welcome to Hell, and its 1982 follow-up, Black Metal, antecedents to thrash, speed metal, and black metal. The English act’s scandalous shock tactics—black leather and spikes, occult aliases, and enough Satanic imagery to make them targets of countless Christian watchdog groups—proved equally influential on future icons like Celtic Frost, Slayer, and Bathory. Personnel changes in the ’90s brought with them variations on Venom’s trademark onslaught: Whereas Temples of Ice embraces the thrash associated with many of their followers, Cast in Stone employs groove metal’s hasher riffage. By the mid-2000s, Lant was the lone original member of a band who have continued to tour and pump out albums like 2015’s From the Very Depths that are unabashed celebrations of Venom’s legendarily unholy racket.