Venom’s Conrad “Cronos” Lant Dead At 63

Conrad "Cronos" Lant, longtime singer and bassist for the pioneering English underground metal band Venom, has massed away. The band announced Lant's passing in a social media post today. No cause of death has been reported. Lant was 63.Venom were probably the most extreme of the bands grouped together under the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal logo. They got downright silly with their Satanism, but their reverb-drenched thrash was fast and hard enough to sell it. They never sold a ton of records, at least compared to peers like Iron Maiden, but their music left a deep impression on many later generations of underground metal bands.Venom's sophomore album, 1982's Black Metal, didn't sound anything like the genre that black metal has become, but the genre indisputably got its name from that record. Death metal might've taken longer to develop without their influence, too. When they toured the US, bands like Metallica and Slayer opened for them. Cronos was the band's frontman and their longest-tenured member by far. He also designed their instantly recognizable logo and did a lot of their cover art, which were honestly just as important as the music to the band's whole presentation.Co...