Venus de Vilo – Slashing Through The Snow

Bringing Halloween to Christmas with more charm and bloodlust than Tim Burton could ever imagine, Irish queen of the macabre Venus de Vilo recently unveiled her new Frightmas EP Slashing Through The Snow. Consisting of three tales of festive mayhem sculpted in the distinctive and seductive style the Dublin born songstress of the grave is increasingly renowned for, the EP suggests there is hope for the Christmas song after all.

Once more Venus de Vilo tempts ears and imagination with her mix of acoustic and vocal rockabilly/vaudeville inspired prowess, a sound and temptation littered with additional aural candy. It is a blend which has already lured acclaim for previous releases such as the Edgar Allan Ho EP and Handle With Scare; a creative haunting and bewitching trespass masked as songs which has also seen the lady light up Dublin’s rock/metal bars, Burlesque and Cabaret nights, and open mic nights for the past years. She is also an alluring artist and writer/poet amongst many things, qualities also adding to the enthralling package of Slashing Through The Snow.

   Santa’s Slay is the first dark deed on the EP, Venus instantly enticing ears vocally as her fingers strum with equal temptation on her guitar. A twisted and uncompromising visiting from the guy in red, song and artist reveal the real bloody heart of the revered protagonist of the festive event. It is a gripping insight, the outstanding and persistently compelling voice of Venus as mischievous as it is creatively harmonic and a rousing incitement on the imagination alone, but especially when loaded with her lyrical devilry.

Second track Mistletoetag is a dark folk lined encounter, Venus colouring her words in the most open and strongest lilt of her accent heard before in her songs, which only adds to the pull of the siren-esque croon. Every noted element of the season is sinisterly woven into the dark romance taking the listener from the heart to the slab, each a flirtation drawing the imagination deeper into the beguiling treat playing like an intoxicatingly intimate Black Christmas.

The EP is completed by The Night Before Christmassacre which as expected twists the ‘traditional’ yuletide story into one of visceral foul play and inescapable outcomes. Venus spins a web of grim and murderous predation, entrails and body parts littering the superb piece of rouge red prose cradled by haunting harmonies and electronic ambience.

The track as both its companions is outstanding, Venus at her best and more whilst taking ears and thoughts on a thrilling horror stained ghost train ride, one stalked by the big bloke and his guts splattered beard. Christmas is the time when you find out if you are on Santa’s good or bad list, though it matters little in the world of Venus de Vilo as confirmed by Slashing Through The Snow; there you are going to get yours come what may.

Slashing Through The Snow is out now @ https://venusdevilo.bandcamp.com/album/slashing-through-the-snow-album-comic-book-and-killendar-2016 and includes illustrated lyrics, comic book, and the digital version of Venus de Vilo’s 2016 “Killendar”.

https://www.facebook.com/VenusDeViloTheVoiceOfHorror   https://twitter.com/VenusDeVilo

Pete RingMaster 11/12/2015

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

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Venus de Vilo – Handle With Scare Pt 1

Horror’s temptress of the night returns with the first part of her debut album Handle With Scare, and from the six tracks it is fair to say that Venus de Vilo has lost none of her seductive revelry and demonic enticements, in fact only increased their potency along with her musical toxicity. With macabre bred passion and tales aligned to an equally dark acoustic temptation, the first teasing of the album has just bout turned an already eager soft spot for her sounds into a stalker-esque compulsion.

Venus first drew blood and attention with the siren call of her previous Edgar Allan Ho EP, a collection of songs which lingered far beyond their intent to become a fixture on the playlist of fans and underground attention, including our own podcast. The Dublin born songstress of the dead has turned the graveyard into her canvas for sonic bloodlust and sinisterly melodic adventure since 2011, proceeding to find a growing legion of fans through her performances across the city’s rock/metal bars, Burlesque and Cabaret nights, and open mic nights. Her presence has subsequently seeped further afield which the Edgar Allan Ho EP only concentrated with its devilish charm and sounds.

Pleasingly Venus has not taken a detour from her individual sound and songwriting which so potently lit up her last release, instead honing it into an even more precise and sirenesque proposition as evidenced by the new songs, starting with I’ve Got 99 Zombies And A Witch Ain’t One. Venus immediately cups ear in her potent voice to open up the song, a Wanda Jackson like depth and potency an immediate hook to which her guitar stabs lend extra drama. Though just voice and guitar, the track is instantly anthemic, swiftly lighting the imagination and sparking cinematic ventures as lady and music unveil the heart of the narrative. Twists in the vocal delivery and guitar stroll beneath haunting harmonies only add to the great melodrama caressing thoughts and emotions, an invitation which feet and voice are unable to resist.

The following Absinthe Makes The Heart Grow Fonder is just as enthralling and compelling, harmonies a delicious croon around the infectious Imelda May like bait of the song primed by Venus and her stringed enticement. Once again a full engagement with the listener is an inevitable rapid success, imagination given further inducement to explore personal shadows and gothic climates. As this and other songs lay ravenously on the psyche, there is a feel of a new confidence and precise intent working away in the heart of the tracks subsequently providing a richer clarity and persuasive tenacity than found in the previous release.

Both Bubbleglum! and Dead! Dead! Dead! keep mortuaries and ears basking in dark vaudeville temptation, the first an incessantly striding tango of stabbing riffs and ghostly harmonies around bewitching vocal predation whilst its successor decides to stalk thoughts before similarly swiping at the senses with feisty chords and Lilith incarnate vocals. Both tracks dance with wicked intent and salacious suasion, enslaving the imagination with vocal hooks within a simple but virulent stroking of guitar.

The Dead Don’t Dance slips into something even more darkly comfortable, a psychobilly whisper flirting with the theatrical colour of the menacing as harmonies shape a thick fog of expression. It is a song which takes a little longer to wrap its shadow spawned tendrils around the passions but eventually does so with unbridled success to emerge as one of the most inventive and dramatically powerful track of the sextet.

Final song Personal Satan swings with sixties embrace in its addictive tempting, essences of Shangri-Las and in some ways the Walker Brothers permeating the mouthwatering graveside balladry. It is a riveting end to a thrilling introduction to Handle With Scare.

With the album’s second half looking to be unveiled later this year anticipation for its full uncaging has gone up in impatience and excitement thanks to this teasing, and if the likes of Horrorpops, The Revillos, Imelda May, and fifties female rock ‘n’ roll instigators is a very palatable attraction for you then Venus de Vilo is a venomous treat just waiting to inflame and devour your lives.

Check out Handle With Scare Pt 1 @https://soundcloud.com/venus-devilo/sets/handle-with-scare

https://www.facebook.com/VenusDeViloSongsFromTheStalkersPointOfView

9/10

RingMaster 18/06/2014

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

Listen to the best independent music and artists on The RingMaster Review Radio Show and The Bone Orchard from

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Venus DeVilo – Edgar Allan Ho EP

Let us introduce you to the dark seductiveness of Venus DeVilo, an artist which preys on the passions like a sultry vampiric temptress bred from artistic alchemy raised from the fire of Imelda May, the snarl of Wanda Jackson, the energy of Fay Fife, and the devilry of Dick Venom, not forgetting a pinch of the infected essences of Horrorpops. Her creative world is one of shadowed carnivals, blood drenched burlesques, and dead borne vaudeville; her music pure sexual fascination and the Edgar Allan Ho EP the perfect introduction to the temptress before the arrival of her debut album Til Death Do Us Party, which we hope will see daylight in the near future, such the hunger now raging.

Hailing from the cemeteries of Dublin, Ireland, well probably a very nice comfortable abode but that hardly goes with the theme does it, Venus since 2011 has frequented and lit up rock/metal bars, Burlesque and Cabaret nights, open mic nights, and other numerous venues around her home city and much further across the country with her Goth-Shock anthems. The host of a series of popular horror themed gigs at the Twisted Pepper, Dublin which have become an almost monthly event, the sonic siren has captured the imagination of the internet media with her dramatic sounds, becoming the favourite sister of the likes of Elegant Savages webzine and the Bone Orchard podcast. Since its release the Edgar Allan Ho EP has drawn lustful attention and it is hard not to understand why as it stalks the minds darkest imagination and cinematic desires.

    Heartless Horseman steps up to tempt the passions first, its initial acoustic guitar stabs and instantly potent vocals the entrance into lyrical and musical stalking of night terrors and their romantic suasion. There is a rockabilly feel to the song which reminds of The Creepshow whilst the excellent soaring vocal imagination and drama of its delivery brings thoughts of Agnete Kjølsrud and the band Djerv as well as Dominique Lenore Persi and Stolen Babies. Unafraid to twist and turn the gait and intent of the track, Venus also sends it into angular and less accessible turns which make suggestions of Lene Lovich. For all the references we offer though, do not make the mistake of assuming the sound of Venus DeVilo is not something quite unique to the graveyard walking beguiler.

The following Apocalips equally enthrals with predominantly acoustic guitar and vocals, though rhythms and bass prowl with devilment in their hearts and wide mischief on their grinning lips too. The song sways and swaggers with the wantonness of a fifties siren and the intimidating composure of instinctive rockabilly, but like the band references these pointers to the sound are only whispers of the full hue of flavours making up the wholly contagious shards of mesmeric aural delight.

Penny Dreadful Love is a song you know should play in the bowels of any mausoleum, its funeral caress punctured and kissed by the again outstanding voice and delivery of its creator. As the lady and song lace the senses and thoughts with their visceral evocation, Venus provokes another comparison, this time to Lesley Woods of Au Pairs in the way she at times slaps words and syllables into the ear. It is a style that is impossible to resist and one which makes the forthcoming album so exciting and this song a dark hearted romantic serenade.

The best song on the release comes with Ringmaster, and no we were not biased in our decision. The vibrant waltz of the colourful enchantment goes hand in hand with the dark carnivale touch, guitar and vocals swinging across the high tented air of the hypnotic mystique and elegant poise. It makes for a glorious soaring flight of theatrical imagination honed into a glorious sirenesque aural spectacular which leads the listener on a tightrope walk of tension and astounding adventure, and note for extra spice its core call around the chorus is a dead ringer for one of the greatest songs ever, Killer Klowns From Outer Space by The Dickies.

The release is completed by firstly Carmilla’s Return, a song which initially has the shadow clouded  ambience reminiscence of Bauhaus song Bela Lugosi’s Dead  and goes on to atmospherically swarm around the ear with the chants of the ‘dead’ harmonising behind the continually powerful and virulently enticing tones of Venus. Once more it is a song which transports you within the sweeping sinister mists of a cinematic painting whilst its successor Miss Frankenstein is simply an epidemically catchy romp with big bold rhythms shaping the cage you are enslaved within. It has a delicious toxicity which leaves you no option but to throw voice and feet into the twisted majesty.

Venus DeVilo is an artist who will scare as many as she seduces but one who will only ever leave a lingering mark in her shadow and if it is anything like the Edgar Allan Ho EP, this dank earth will be a better place.

https://www.facebook.com/VenusDeViloSongsFromTheStalkersPointOfView

10/10

RingMaster 24/07/2013

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

Listen to the best independent music and artists on The RingMaster Review Radio Show and The Bone Orchard from

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