Review RAVEN ‘Leave ’em Bleeding’

Raven are one of the bands that have left a lasting mark on heavy metal, yet have never lost their underground status. While other bands of the NWoBHM took off and enjoyed and still enjoy great commercial success, it was Raven who always stood in the second row, leaving aside the years with Atlantic Records. Nevertheless, the development of genres such as speed metal and thrash metal would certainly have been different without the contribution of the Gallagher brothers. Raven belong to the pioneers in metal.

More than one scary moment occurred in 2001 when guitarist Mark Gallagher was seriously injured by a collapsing wall. This meant a longer break for the band and it was in 2004 when Raven came back to the stages. So you can’t stop Raven that easily. This band is a true metal force.

After this little detour we are approaching the current phase of the band and with it the ‘Leave ’em Bleeding’ album. With this record Raven looks back on the past years and what could have been a simple compilation has become a little bit more with Raven.

The basic framework for the record consists of three songs from the last studio album ‘Metal City’ and two songs from the 2015 release ‘ExtermiNation’. Together with a live song, it results in a good retrospective over the past seven years.

Besides these songs, ‘Necesssary Evil’ is also on this record release. It is one of the first songs that Raven released after the serious accident of Mark Gallagher. With ‘Space Station #5’ (Montrose) and ‘Bad Reputation’ (Thin Lizzy) the record also contained two cover versions. The final tracks are ‘Rock This Town’, a song which was produced by Michael Wagner in 2018, and the closing live number ‘Stay Hard’ also fits very well.

All in all, Raven have put together a good tracklist on ‘Leave ’em Bleeding’ which shows that they are far from being on the shelf.