VENOMOUS CONCEPT (feat. Shane Embury & Kevin Sharp) Announces New Album, ‘The Good Ship Lollipop’; Drops New Single, “Voices,” via Decibel Records

Venomous Concept—the punk band formed by Napalm Death’s Shane Embury and former Brutal Truth vocalist Kevin Sharp—are set to return with the most expansive, boundary-obliterating album to date, The Good Ship Lollipop. The group’s fifth full length will receive an exclusive North American vinyl and cassette release through Decibel Records on February 24, 2023 (and is available for pre-order now).

“When the pandemic hit, we decided we needed to make an album that didn’t fit,” says Embury. “We all loved so much other kind of punk and rock, so why not explore that which is, in essence, closer to our hearts? To do the same album over and over again would be boring.”

The Good Ship Lollipop—which finds Sharp and Embury joined by fellow Napalm Death guitarist John Cooke alongside Carl Stokes, former drummer of U.K. death metal legends Cancer—is anything but the repetitive, as evidenced by the album’s anthemic first single, “Voices.”

Engineered by Piers Mortimer (Deep Purple) and produced by long-time friend and soundman Simon Efemey (Paradise Lost, Amorphis), the record was challengingly recorded during the height of the pandemic in 2020. “It was an amazing fun and creative experience, recording while there were COVID restrictions,” Embury offers. “We seem to only now dimly recall the whole process but this record lives it and breathes it.

“When Decibel released the Deadguy live record [Buyer’s Remorse] this year, my gears turned,” says Sharp. “Having supported the band in print and via flexi disc, we were stoked to see [Decibel editor] Albert [Mudrian]’s interest in this VC record. It’s a different kind record and deserves a different kind of approach. The music industry is in constant evolution and this approach to getting our music out seems like a good fit amongst old friends on our terms.”