Unleashed paid tribute to the late Venom singer Conrad «Cronos» Lant by playing «Countess Bathory» at their show on 7 October at Gagarin 205 in Athens.
“`The Last Song of the Night
According to Setlist.fm, the Swedish death metal band closed the night with the Venom song, the last of 15 in the set and after «Before The Creation Of Time». The performance was filmed by a fan.
Nothing New for Unleashed
The song is not unfamiliar to Unleashed: the band had recorded its own version for its second album, Shadows In The Deep, released by Century Media in 1992. The original is on Venom’s Black Metal from 1982.
Johnny Hedlund’s Tribute
Venom announced Cronos’ death on 1 October. He was 63 and the cause has not been made known. On 2 October Unleashed bassist and singer Johnny Hedlund wrote on social media about how Venom’s first records and a live video shaped his ambitions as a musician. He recalled the night he came home from the record shop with Welcome To Hell and thought it was like hardcore punk, but metal with a serious attitude, and how years later a VHS tape of a show at the Hammersmith Odeon hit him like a bomb. «If I ever become a musician and put a band together, I want to be a frontman like him», he wrote, closing with «Thank you for everything, Mr. Cronos. See you in Valhalla».
Welcome To Hell, Venom’s debut, had come out in 1981, a year before Black Metal.
Mantas’ Farewell
Venom co-founder and original guitarist Jeff «Mantas» Dunn, who with Cronos and drummer Tony «Abaddon» Bray made up the classic line-up, thanked people for their condolences and dwelled on the friendship of the early years and the «one for all, all for one» spirit they had then. «Despite the turbulent history of this band, at the end of the day it was the three of us who started something so special and changed the course and the history of metal as we know it», he said, adding that, with all the ups and downs, it «hits hard». His message closed with «Rest in power, Conrad Cronos Lant».
Venom After Cronos
Venom’s last line-up with Cronos included guitarist Rage (Stuart Dixon) and drummer Danté (Danny Needham), who said their goodbyes earlier in October. The band released its 16th album, Into Oblivion, on 1 May through Noise/BMG — its first new music since Storm The Gates in 2018.
Unleashed
Hedlund founded Unleashed in Stockholm in 1989. Their lyrics deal with Viking culture, Norse mythology and the pre-Christian world, with several songs referencing the work of J.R.R. Tolkien. The band is often mentioned together with Dismember, Entombed and Grave as the «big four» of Swedish death metal.
Their 15th album, Fire Upon Your Lands, came out on 15 August 2025 through Napalm Records, while the single «War Comes Again» also appeared in the Athens setlist. On 28 November Unleashed are booked for Metal Hammer Paradise at Weissenhäuser Strand in Germany.
See also: Venom: Conrad «Cronos» Lant has died at the age of 63 · Venom: The tribute to the discography that paved the way for extreme metal
