THIS WEEK I’M LISTENING TO...VIRON – NWOGHM and Ferrum Gravis (Golden Core)

Formed in the early years of the new millennium, Seduction recorded a couple of demos (‘Ode To War’ in 2002, with ‘Winds Of Valhalla’ coming the following year) before the guys realised that the best thing about banging your head against a wall is that it’s nice when you stop. The keyboard player Martin ‘Mad’ Kölher quit but the rest of the band – vocalist Alexx Stahl, guitarist Thilo Feucht, bassist Ingmar Holzhauer and drummer Andreas ‘Neudi’ Neuderth – decided to carry on in a different vein, and that’s when things started to get interesting.

The newly named Viron set to work on an EP entitled ‘NWOGHM’ – given that Neudi and Stahl are members of NWOBHM covers band Roxxcalibur the nod to the movement in the EP’s name is purely intentional – which they self-released at the end of 2004. Sonic Rage Records expressed an interest in the band, so with some remixing and the addition of some freshly-recorded material, including a new version of Seduction’s ‘Winds Of Valhalla’, and a second guitarist in Roger Dequis, Viron’s first album (still bearing the ‘NWOGHM’ title) appeared in April 2006. (Dequis, incidentally, would also go on to join the ranks of Roxxcalibur, who released the first of their three albums so far, ‘NWOBHM For Muthas’, in 2009.) But what sets Viron apart from the rest of the pack is that their influences and musical interests led them to sound much more like a cross between a US metal band from the early 1980s and a NWOBHM act, rather than just another contemporary metal crew, and this was quite atypical for the time. Theirs was a fresh and dynamic approach and the album, with heavy-hitters like ‘Born To Die’ and ‘Lucifer Arise’ together with that eloquent ballad ‘Winds Of Valhalla’, is a real gem. Played blind you’d easily expect it to come from the US underground of forty years back, but it still has a modern-day cutting edge. Re-issued now by Golden Core the LP has been expanded to a double and features tracks from the Seduction demos as well as Viron’s take on Exxplorer’s ‘Run For Tomorrow’, a track from the EP which didn’t make the original album.

Viron’s second – and final – album ‘Ferrum Gravis’ followed in February 2008 and trod the same path with a little more panache. Again, this new Golden Core re-release has been expended to a double LP, with some live material and a couple of covers, including a romp through ‘The Trooper’. But things came to standstill fairly quickly. As Neudi recalls in the liner notes to ‘Ferrum Gravis’, “I can’t really remember why nothing happened,” but acknowledges that “at the same time Alexx, Roger and myself were already working on our NWOBHM tribute band Roxxcalibur which became bigger than Viron ever was...” Cuttings included in the same liner notes show that both Fireworks and PowerPlay magazines here in the UK did pick up on Viron, but as the band were probably never that well known outside of their native Germany it would be fitting if these revamped releases raise the profile of a band who boasted a great deal of talent and some really fine songs. Enjoy!

Video clips:
‘Liberator’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do27MQte4eE
‘On The Run’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7KJ8QSxsFg

John Tucker October 2024