Marty Venus - You Destroy You

Album review by; Ian

Marty Venus is an English guitarist, who spent several years with 'Guns of Anarchy' latterly changing their name to 'Wicked Jackals' until leaving the band due to the age old 'difference in musical directions' reason to follow a longstanding desire to produce his own album. What we get with 'You Destroy You' are ten tracks covering a variety of hard rock styles and influences with nine different vocalists to give us an album covering a wide range of, mostly, original music all linked by Marty's guitar work.

(Makes Me Feel) Alive opens up the album with a mid-paced almost grunge influenced riff with vocals from Adam Chambers adding a harsh edgy feel to the song until we get to Marty's lead break which sets the tone for the whole album with a classic hard rock sound and style which does sit well and compliment the rest of the song. Next track 'Breaking Sounds' features former 'Heavens Basement' singer Richie Havens and is a classic, straightforward hard rocker that would fit right into a mid-eighties Hair Metal band, complete with a middle bridge that takes the song down a notch to set up launching into a wicked solo straight out of the Slash book of lead breaks.

'Ruined Fantasy' is the first track which if I'm honest doesn't really work for me. Nothing wrong with the performances, again some great guitar work and a strong vocal from Maria Verhelst but just not enough in the song writing to make it stand out. Whereas 'Desire' brings things right back on track with another hard rocker and again it's the lead work which raises the standard with a lengthy solo to see the song out in raucous style.

This is an album that musically has been largely written and crafted from the start by Marty although the individual vocalists have been given freedom to create their own lyrical themes. Funded by a Kick-starter campaign and being largely recorded by home computer means that the sound has its limitations, there's an early NWOBHM feel to some of the rock tracks, certainly better than demo standard, but I definitely feel that a bigger production budget could take some of these songs to another level.

Title track 'You Destroy You' again features Maria Verhelst with a strong ballad, some powerful yet haunting vocal and Marty again channelling his inner Slash with some 'November Rain' type soloing. Another of Marty's big influences is 'System of a Down' and 'Who's To Blame' sees the album take a turn in that direction with another strong vocal performance. The Guns 'n' Roses influence is never far away though with an Axl like vocal on 'Grey Fox' with maybe a touch of Blackmore coming through on the lead work with this one before the album closes with a haunting version of 'Snake Eater' the main theme from video game Metal Gear Solid 3.

Marty's bio references many of the influences we here hear, and the fact that he was inspired by Slash's first solo album featuring multiple guests and vocalists and overall the album is a triumph and a worthy effort to fulfil the dream to replicate that. The downside is that you can't please all of the people all of the time and with the variety of sounds and singers on display there's always likely to be something that doesn't sit quite as well with you. But the fact that he's got this completed at all is to his credit, leaving an established band to fulfil your dream is deserves our total respect. It seems harsh to criticise an album that was crowd funded and pretty much recorded at home on your laptop but what it does show is that with a bit of backing there's certainly a lot more to come.

Marty Venus is a hugely talented guitarist, one of the first notes I made when listening to this was 'Old School Guitar Hero' and coming from someone who grew up on Blackmore, Page, Van Halen and Schenker, that's a definite compliment not criticism. But at the same time the very thing that the album sets out to do also makes me feel there's no distinct direction, it doesn't create a consistent identity as an album rather than just a collection of songs. It's the guitar and particularly his lead work that holds the whole thing together and that's a great credit to Marty. With a consistent line up in place to take these songs out on the road over the next year I'm sure things can only get stronger. A couple of festival appearances or the right support slot and I'm sure the audiences would be won over.

3.5 out of 5 for the album

4 out of 5 for Marty and his Guitar

Working with the likes of:

Adam Chambers, Richie Hevanz (Misery's Smile, Heaven's Basement), Maria Verhelst (Touch The Fist, Doctor and the Medics), Leandro Bastos, Daniel Lawrence (SpyderByte), Atashi Tada (Elysian Divide), Aman Virdi, Flash Roxx Sawyer (Trophies of Man, King Lizard) and Shona Ferguson, as well as the instrumental talents of Jack Cox (Assimilate), Ben Skingley (Skyward), Fabio Tucci (Drums), Accy Yeats (Hamilton Musical Band Drummer), Matt Davies (Drums) and Jason Moser (Drums) to aid in creating this long time vision.