Hardcore punk supergroup Venomous Concept is done recording their fifth studio album, according to their guitarist Shane Embury. They recorded the album at Cambridge, UK’s Headline Music Studios with producer Simon Efemey, who has produced several records for Napalm Death, Amorphis, Paradise Lost and others.
Venomous Concept formed in 2003, but hasn’t released a lot of music since the members are all parts of other bands as well. The initial lineup was Brutal Truth vocalist Kevin Sharp, Melvins frontman Buzz Osbourne on guitar, Napalm Death drummer Danny Herrera and Embury, who’s better known for his role as Napalm Death’s bassist. When Buzz Osbourne left the group in 2006, Embury fully took over on guitar and Anthrax/S.O.D./Brutal Truth member Dan Lilker joined on bass. John Cooke, another Napalm Death member, joined in the early 2010s as an additional guitar player.
@dbmagazine Finally finished the next @OfficialVCpunx album with Simon Efemey at #headlinemusicstudios – I am seriously over the moon with what we all achieved ! We made the album we wanted to it’s all that matters – a venture into different areas of of punk and rock !! 🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/abQzIYa4FD
— Shane Embury (@NAPALM_DEATH) February 16, 2021
Embury’s announcement tweet states that the new album is what they wanted to make and mentions that it incorporates different styles of punk and rock. When Venomous Concept announced the new record at the end of December, they shared an experimental 25-minute track called “Knowle Road” under the alias Visceral Collapse. Sharp gave some additional information about their new material in the Bandcamp description for the release, “Shane wrote some songs for the next Venomous Concept album – more up tempo high paced rock and roll punk mixed in with a Husker Dü melodic 80’s hardcore punk feel… it goes this way then that way and an album forms…”
The band certainly used their spare time stuck at home last year to write songs. They released their last album in August 2020, titled Politics Versus the Erection. Embury had a particularly busy year release-wise, with Napalm Death’s Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism and a solo album both out in October 2020, plus the second record from his Blood From the Soul project in November.