One of the most legendary bands to have emerged from the forging fires of black metal, San Francisco's VON were arguably the genre's first band to have emerged from the US. Much like Finland's Beherit, their ultra-primitive sound horrified many yet enthralled a legion of devout worshippers. Their rare, ritualistic live shows, featuring animal skulls and copious amounts blood nigh on two decades before it became de rigeur and initial demo release (not releasing a studio album under the name until 2012) tapped into dark and irrational and rudimentary regions of the human psych. In the process, they setting out a path that's been in large part responsible for the current wave of occult-steeped death and black metal, not least for Watain, who named themselves after the track on 1992's Satanic Blood cassette, and Dublin's rising underground metallers and wielders of capitalised letters, ZOM.

VON's history since has been as tempestuous as their music, lurching from long hiatuses through internal fights, splits and more, but now they're back in a new incarnation fronted by VENIEN, and with both a new album, Dark Gods: Birth Of The Architects, released on VON Records next March, and a comic book Dark Gods, written and illustrated by VENIEN himself, that will be published in 12 parts on a weekly basis from December 1 through to February 6, and each one coming with an exclusive CD single.