Raven

Raven is an English heavy metal band that built great albums in the 1980s and made important contributions to speed metal.

One of the fastest in NWOBHM. Their first three albums are flawless, and the double live album Live at the inferno shows all the fury of this power-trio. At a certain point in their career they wanted to soften their powerful sound but soon realized that this was a mistake. Soon after two restrained albums (Stay Hard and The Pack is Back), they came back with the reasonable Life is a Bitch, getting redemption with the great Nothing Exceeds Like Excess.
Raven was formed in 1974 by brothers Mark (guitar and vocals) and John Gallagher (bass and vocals) in Newcastle, England. They called some friends together to play some covers of Deep Purple and Status Quo until they started to create their own material. The band stabilized with Mark, John, Paul Bowden (guitar and vocals) and Mick Kenworthy (drums).

They played a lot in English pubs, when Mick left the band in 78, Sean Taylor took his place. In 1979 it was Paul’s turn to leave the band, and Pete Shore joined, who soon left the band, giving way to Rob Hunter. As a power-trio with their own sound, Raven released a single called “Don’t Need Your Money” by the small Neat Records label. After releasing the single they opened for Iron Maiden and Whitesnake.

In 1981, “Rock Until You Drop”, the band’s first album, was released. With it the band was able to play almost all over Europe. The next year, the album “Wiped Out” was released. With very fast compositions, it is one of the favourite albums among fans. The single “Crash Bang Wallop” also came out. Then, working with Michael Wagner and Udo Dirkschneider (Accept, UDO) they recorded the album “All For One” playing at the Aardschock festival in the Netherlands, and did their first US tour, with Metallica opening their shows, and signed with Megaforce for their third album, All For One released in 1983.

In 1984, when Anthrax opened their shows, Raven recorded a great show and released the live album “Live At The Inferno” the last one. Hired by the Atlantic label, the band radically changes their musical style to a more glam sound, and they record their first album for the new label in 1985, “Stay Hard”. The band makes their first music video for the single “On & On”.

The next album was “The Pack Is Back”, produced by renowned producer Eddie Kramer (Kiss, Led Zeppelin). This album is perhaps the most commercial album ever released by the band. On this tour, the band opened for Judas Priest who were promoting the album “Turbo”;

In 1987, the band released “Life’s A Bitch”. After the tour for this album, Rob left the band, and in his place, Joe Hasselvander from Pentagram joined the band. In 1989, the band signed with Relativity Records to record “Nothing Exceeds Like Excess,” which marked Raven’s return to their fast and heavy sound.

In the early 1990s, the band released “Architect Of Fear” and soon after “Heads Up!” (1992), which did not achieve great success. In 1994, then, the band released “Glow”, an album that changed the band’s style a little, and contains a cover for “The Rocker”, a Thin Lizzy song. In 1995, the band released another live record, which took the name “Destroy All Monsters – Live In Japan”, an excellent album, containing great Raven songs, which was also recently released in Brazil via Hellion Records.

The band’s next album was “Everything Louder”, which had a great tour. Despite this, Raven has never been the same band from the time of “Life’s A Bitch” or other great 80’s albums.

In 2000, the band releases the album One For All.

In 2001, guitarist Mark Gallagher suffered a serious accident crushing his legs, which took the band on a 4-year hiatus.

In 2009, Raven, with Mark fully recovered, return to activities with their 12th studio album, the great Walk Through Fire.

In 2014, the band opens for Metallica on their South American tour, playing to almost 70,000 people.

In 2015, after an internet campaign on Kickstarter, Raven gets money to release ExtermiNation, an album that brings Raven definitely back to their NWOBHM roots.

In 2020 the band releases “Metal City” on the SPV/Steamhammer label, featuring the Gallagher brothers and Mike Heller on drums. To promote the album the Lyric Video of the song Top Of The Mountain was made available on Youtube.