Venezuelan Metal Season
Venezuelan Metal Season is Kevy Metal’s second deep dive into the metal scene of a specific country. Throughout 2025, I have interviewed Venezuelan musicians playing multiple styles of hard rock and metal from various generations. In December 2025 and January 2026, the entire site is dedicated to their stories and their perspectives.
Unlike Peruvian Metal Month, the interviews for Venezuelan Metal Season have been spread out over two months, because there were simply too many to cram them all into one month. This was all made possible by a number of very enthusiastic and helpful musicians. I cannot thank them enough. Please give their music your attention, because they deserve it.
All interviews and reviews that make up Venezuelan Metal Season can be found right here.
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Interview Giancarlo Picozzi (Arkangel): Expressive and Rebellious Hard Rock
Along with his drumming brother Giorgio, Arkangel guitarist Giancarlo Picozzi was part of the first generation of Venezuelan heavy metal musicians, establishing the band under the name Power Age as early as 1978. These days, the Picozzi brothers are still the core of Arkangel. Giancarlo looks back on nearly forty…
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Album of the Week 01-2026: Guerra Santa – Éxodo: Un Nuevo Comienzo
By the time ‘Éxodo: Un Nuevo Comienzo’ was recorded, Guerra Santa had already left their provincial Venezuelan hometown of San Cristóbal for the Argentinian capital of Buenos Aires, and that relocation is the thread that runs through the album. To write the music for the album, singer and sole remaining…
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Interview Andrés Guzmán (Grand Bite): Sharing Passions and Ideals
While Grand Bite isn’t commonly named among the first generation of Venezuelan heavy metal bands, the band were actually established before Resistencia and Arkangel had debuted. They have since become one of the more prolific Venezuelan metal bands of their era, delivering six albums full of solid traditional heavy metal…
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Interview Riccardo Musci (Ariah Records): Applying Business Skills to a Hobby
Record store, label and concert promoter Ariah Records is at the heart of the Venezuelan Metal Scene, and has been for about 25 years. Co-founder and co-owner Riccardo Musci gives us a glimpse into his motivations behind starting Ariah Records, and how the Venezuelan metal music industry has changed over…
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Interview Spartans: Helping a New Generation of Musicians
Debuting in 2023 with the strong ‘Nunca Dejes de Soñar’, Spartans is one of the most promising newer bands on the Venezuelan scene. Their melancholic sound brings together the heroic melodicism of traditional heavy metal and the down-tuned riffs of more modern metal styles. Spartans also is very serious about…
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Album of the Week 52-2025: Gillman – Inevitable
Out of all Gillman albums, ‘Inevitable‘ is the one I think deserves to be talked about more. It does seem to be more difficult to obtain than some of Gillman’s classic albums, but apart from the excellent closing track ‘María Lionza’, it isn’t all that well-represented on Gillman’s live sets…
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Interview Abel Cañizales (Mercenaries of Silence, Laberinto, Stratuz): Learning to Understand Music
Abel Cañizales is associated with several high-profile Venezuelan rock and metal bands. He played with influential doom/death metal band Stratuz during their formative years, briefly played with traditional heavy metal powerhouse Cronos, had a stint with pop-rockers Radio Clip and was the final guitarist for seminal Latin-metallers Laberinto. These days,…
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Interview Isaias Guilarte (Noctis Imperium): “We Just Have to Be Patient”
For nearly twenty-five years, guitarist and vocalist Isaias Guilarte has been soldiering on with his black metal band Noctis Imperium. First on his own, later as the band’s frontman. He has also been active as a recording and mixing engineer for several metal bands, mostly from the Puerto La Cruz…
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Interview Jesús García (Maskhera): Always Willing to Improve
Maskhera is one of the more influential Venezuelan metal bands on the more contemporary groove/thrash metal side of the spectrum. What’s interesting is that the band keeps reinventing itself. It is exactly this drive to get better and more interesting that drummer Jesús García – who is Venezuelan, but didn’t…
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Album of the Week 51-2025: Stratuz – Osculum Pacis
Being one of the first extreme metal bands in Venezuela would have been enough to cement Stratuz’ legacy. A testament to their artistry is the fact that they kept evolving. Granted, there were nearly twenty-two years between ‘Osculum Pacis‘ and its direct predecessor ‘Spirit Seduction‘, and such a long time…
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Interview Joad Manuel Jiménez (Sexto Sonar, Arkangel, Centurion): Finding Magic in Music
Joad Manuel Jiménez possesses one of the strongest voices in the South American metal scene, and he has sung with the likes of progressive metal titans Sexto Sonar and heavy metal pioneers Arkangel. Jiménez looks back on his development from a young, rock-loving kid to the expressive frontman of multiple…
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Interview Alejandro Londoño Montoya (Cultura Tres, Agresión, Epitafio): Always Trying to Get Better
Though born in Colombia, Alejandro Londoño Montoya was an important part of the Venezuelan rock and metal scene with death/thrashers Epitafio and rap-metallers Agrésion. For the last two decades, however, his main focus has been his sludge/doom metal band Cultura Tres, which is a little more international in character. “Cultura…
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