Review: Venus in Fear – The Dot Above the Eye

Style: traditional progressive metal, folk (clean, female vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Dream Theater, Orphaned Land, Vanden Plas
Review by: Sam
Country: Israel
Release date: 12 April, 2018

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This review was originally included in the April 2018 edition of The Progressive Subway. If you think the writing’s amateurish – that’s because it was. I didn’t even make the website yet when I wrote this.]

Are you looking for melodic prog metal with clean vocals? This is for you. It took me a while to get past the female soprano vocals, but thank god I didn’t write it off after my first listen, because The Dot Above the Eye is a stunning record.

Now apparently this album was five years in the making, and I think it shows. There’s a lot of attention for detail to be found. You’ve got pristine production, beautiful artwork and detailed musical arrangements. It’s clear they’ve put thought in every aspect of this album before releasing it.

What really separates Venus in Fear from the majority is the original songwriting. Despite the song lengths, they sound tight and entirely captivating. It’s dynamic, detailed and unpredictable. There are Middle-Eastern sounding bits, riffy metal parts, grand symphonic choruses, proggy bridges, pretty acoustic parts, tasteful synth work and more. It’s been a long time since I heard traditional prog metal that was this good. The soprano female vocals can be off putting at first, as they tend to dominate the sonic landscape. But once you get used to them, you’ll notice that the techniques singer Noga Kedem uses are quite varied and no less monotonic than other acclaimed male singers like Andy Kuntz or Ross Jennings. Her voice is beautiful and fits the music well.

Another thing that’s incredible about this album are the leads. They are so good they deserve their own paragraph. Let me start by saying that this is far and away the best lead guitarist I’ve come across to in this series. Just listen to his solo in Ancient Truth, shivers all over. He can shred, but most importantly the emotion and melodic phrasing he lays in his solos are simply stunning. The keyboard player is also nuts by the way. Shades of Jordan Rudess over his playing, but he has his own style and it’s awesome as hell. His patches are tasteful and creates beautiful atmospheres.

This is an amazing melodic traditional progressive metal album. Venus in Fear should be proud of their debut, because this is simply great. Some songs have a tendency to go on too long, but on the whole this is a superb debut album. It’s varied, melodic, original and excellently produced. No fan of traditional progressive metal should miss this. I think it’s safe to say that this is already an album of the year contender for me (though it probably won’t top Hands of Despair haha).

Recommended tracks: Ancient Truth, Twice As the Devil, Like a Star
You may also like: Subterranean Masquerade (bandcamp), Soul Enema (bandcamp), TDW (bandcamp)
Final verdict: 8.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Independent

Venus in Fear is:
– Noga Kedem (vocals)
– Shahar ”Barni” Bar-Nitzan (guitars)
– Daniel Isakov (guitars)
– Nimrod Eldar (keyboards)
– Michael Kushitz (bass)
– Ohav Sagie (drums)