Artist: Venator
Country: Austria
Label: Dying Victims Productions
Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD
Year: 2025
Although the NWOBHM-movement has never really stopped attracting new listeners over the past two decades or so, its popularity has been coming and going – basically just as with every metal sub-genre. For example, when bands like Enforcer came up we saw a slight growth of appreciation for the early British Heavy Metal scene, but there has also been some resurgence going on in recent years. Yet, I wouldn’t go as far as calling it a revival, as that would imply it is more part of a trend instead of a musical evolution in which classic Heavy Metal is gaining momentum. In fact, the full spectrum of Heavy Metal is slowly but surely increasingly gaining more steam. Not only the more epic-in-nature sort of Heavy Metal that’s most evident in the popularity of Eternal Champion, but also labels like No Remorse Records and Dying Victims Productions are working hard like the 90’s never happened.
One of the products of those who refused to give up on classic Heavy Metal, in the broadest sense of the word, is Venator, from Linz, Austria. The band debuted with the ‘Paradiser’ 12” EP in 2020 and has been building on a legacy of their own with a split 12” EP with Angel Blade and the band’s debut ‘Echoes From The Gutter’. Yet, while all three of these recordings are great and convincing enough in their own right, it is really with ‘Psychodrome’ that the band was able to musically cash in on their experience and retrospective visions.
If the moustache on this second album’s cover isn’t telling enough, you will be convinced by the first few moments when you let the needle sink in this record’s grooves. The musical formula of what the band had presented us before is not just continued, it is deepened and perfected. Basically, Venator is the missing link between the more standard NWOBHM bands like early Def Leppard, Girlschool and Tokyo Blade and the more ambitious nature of epic American Heavy Metal in the form of Virgin Steele or Warlord. So, there’s not only concise and catchy song writing and melodicism, there’s also a strong sense of almost progressive vocal lines as well as bits and pieces of both Hardrock and Speed Metal for good measure. All resulting in a thoroughly interesting, dynamic and overall just very convincing Heavy Metal that leans backwards to all kinds of familiar territories, but at the same time sounds as refreshing as this might have been when it would’ve been released back in 1983 or so.
Without wanting to take anything away from Venator’s earlier output, ‘Pyschodrome’ is without a glimmer of a doubt the band’s most all-round and “mature” recording so far. All the pieces of the puzzle, that were more or less already there since Venator’s inception, have fallen perfectly into place on this record, which a true treat for everyone who holds classic and expertly crafted and downright enjoyable Heavy Metal in high regard.
