Venamoris

Even if your tolerance to metal means you’d rather spend seasons in the Abyss than listen to Slayer, the sultry, experimental dark-pop undertow of Venamoris might just pull you in. The duo consists of vocalist and songwriter Paula Lombardo and multi-instrumentalist husband Dave who, despite his protestations, is undoubtedly still best known as the original and definitive drummer with the thrash legends.

“I don’t think I’m typecast,” he shrugs. “I can go from extreme music to the most ambient or atonal style of music and enjoy and embrace it for what it is. Anybody that’s known my career and followed me knows that about me.”

He does have a point. The man has played with avant-garde saxophonist John Zorn and alongside Mike Patton in experimental rock outfits Fantômas and Mr. Bungle. His solo and collaborative work has incorporated everything from classical to hip-hop. For many fans he remains king of the metal blastbeat but this husband-and-wife duo are a very different proposition.

Paula came from a very different musical world, having started her career performing lounge standards with ‘Mr Las Vegas’ Wayne Newton. “He’s the ultimate entertainer, it’s immeasurable what I learned from that experience,” she smiles. “A lot of professionalism certainly but also my vocal performance. We had four or five singers onstage so it really honed in on my harmonies. I was having to jump around a lot of parts too, so it really expanded my range.”

At the same time, the formative experiences of playing in Las Vegas and later Nashville gave her quite a codified view of the music-making process. “I was very much in a box,” she explains. “I thought everything had to be done a very specific way. And meeting Dave and his introducing me to acts like Portishead and Jucifer and even Fantômas… I had never heard Fantômas before and all of a sudden I heard music that was so, so fearless. It didn’t make sense to me at first, but then I thought, ‘Wow! I can be broken. I can express myself and not worry about that crack in my voice, because maybe I cried when I sang.’

“We had to find this this medium point where we could communicate musically with each other,” Dave adds. “We’ve been together for 10 years but that didn’t happen until 2020. We started developing it and it’s continued ever since.”

The result was Venamoris, an emotional honest, darkly lustrous creation defined by Paula’s sultry vocals and a go-anywhere musical vibe. Portishead are certainly a valid comparison but there are plenty of other influences drawn from smoky jazz, late-night blues and underground electronica. Even when Dave brings in friends from the metal world such as Testament guitarist Alex Skolnick and Exodus/Slayer guitarist Gary Holt to appear on new album //To Cross Or To Burn//, they’re guesting on tracks that are far from their usual day-jobs.

“We have to figure out some catchy name for what we do,” laughs Dave. “Neo soul? Dark pop? Dark synth? We have no idea what we are.”

And sometimes that’s the best position for any musical outfit to be in. PT

PROG FILE

LINE-UP: Paula Lombardo (vocals, piano, synth), Dave Lombardo (guitar, drums, bass, production)

SOUNDS LIKE: A hypnotic 4am bout of soul-searching while Portishead, Coil and Vangelis play in the background.

CURRENT RELEASE: New album //To Cross Or To Burn// is out now on Ipecac Recordings.

WEBSITE: venamoris.bandcamp.com

— Paul Travers