The Bad Penny (beta)

Do you remember Joudy, the Venezuelan band that has more courage than all of us put together as demonstrated by the escape they pulled off from their homeland to New York in order to escape drug cartel violence? No? Then shame on you for not reading every installment in The Bad Penny‘s ongoing On Tyranny series, which provides musicians with a space where they can talk about the threats that fascism poses to artists. (The Joudy installment is here.)

Apparently Diego Ramirez, frontman of the three-piece, enjoyed our conversation so much that he return for a second round of talks with The Bad Penny. This time, we covered an entirely different topic, which you’ve probably pieced together by now. A few weeks ago, we started touching base with musicians in countries around the world to ask them what heavy bands they consider to be the bee’s knees in their respective countries.

The series has quickly become one of the most popular in the 16-year history of this website, so in light of the positive reception, we’re gonna keep trotting around the globe (figuratively) to confer with native musicians about what great bands us foreigners aren’t paying enough attention to in their homelands. As a bonus, this project is doubling up as a rebuttal to Spotify and algorithms telling us what we should listen to; The Bad Penny continues to value recommendations that come from human beings as opposed to AI.

Without further ado, what follows is Ramirez’s list of the best heavy bands hailing from Venezuela. (Ramirez is clearly a guy who goes the extra mile, because he also notated what he considers to be each band’s best record.)

• La Seguridad Nacional – Documento de actitud

• Sentimiento Muerto – El amor ya no existe

• Zapato Tres – Besame y Suicidate

• Dermis Tatú – La Mato La Pico La Violo

• La Leche – 45

• Candy 66 – A+

• Pharmacy – The frozen colors of the morning limbo

• zeta – L’antiteoria del Todo

• Niño Nuclear – Re&Sol abierto

• Revólver Suicida – s/t

Pre-order Joudy’s upcoming debut LP, Farewell to All We’ve Lost (Aural Music), here. It drops October 9. And tide yourself over by snagging their 2023 demo, Into Nothingness I Walk, here.

For more on Joudy, go to:

https://joudyjoudyjoudy.com/
https://www.instagram.com/joudy.joudy.joudy/?hl=en
https://www.trashcasual.com/joudy
https://joudyjoudyjoudy.bandcamp.com/music

And check out the latest video from his band’s recently released album, Permanent Maintenance, here:

For more authoritative lists of the best heavy bands from non-U.S. countries, as picked by bands that hail from those places, check out:

• Top 10 Best Chinese Metal Bands, According to Homegrown Heathens Dehumanizing Itatrian Worship
• Top 10 Best Russian Bands, According to Native Son Ovfrost of Malist and Crimson Crown
• Top 10 Best Chilean Metal Bands, According to Native Black-Metal Act Ad Finem Omnia
• The 10 Best Canadian Metal Bands, According to Montreal Thrashers Ombra (Exclusive)
• The 10 Best German Heavy Bands, According to Native Black-Metal Sons Der Weg einer Freiheit (Exclusive)
• The 10 Best Bay Area Bands, According to Death-Thrash Hometown Heroes Absolute Darkness (Exclusive)
• The 10 Best Swiss Bands, According to Native Dark-Jazz-Grind-Doom Experimentalists Convulsif (Exclusive)
• The 10 Best Irish Bands, According to Alt-Pop-Addicted Electronic Producer Phenom Vaticanjail (Exclusive)
• The 10 Best Chilean Bands, According to Guitarist for Santiago-Based Noisy Punk-Rock Squad Niño Nuclear (Exclusive)
• The 10 Best Icelandic Metal Bands, According to the Country’s Own Folk-Metal Act Hrafnablót (Exclusive)
• The 10 Best Italian Metal Bands, According to the Country’s New Post-Metal Phenoms Orbita (Exclusive)
• The 10 Best Belgian Metal Bands of All Time, According to Gnarly Native Sons 30,000 Monkies (Exclusive)
• Edge of Sanity Frontman Dan Swanö Reveals 10 Swedish Bands That Made Their Way Into His Musical DNA
• The 10 Best Swedish Heavy Bands Ever, According to Native Sons Prime Creation
• The 10 Best Portuguese Heavy Bands Ever, According to Portugal’s Own Fernando Ribeiro of Moonspell
• The 10 Best German Metal Bands Ever, Per the Country’s Native Death-Metal Sons Fleshcrawl
• The 10 Best Finnish Bands Ever, According to Natives the Feral Kids

This entry was posted on 08/21/2026 at 10:57 am and is filed under Exclusives, Interviews, Lists with tags Dermis Tatú, Diego Ramirez, Joudy, La Leche, La Seguridad Nacional, Niño Nuclear, Revólver Suicida, Sentimiento Muerto, Zapato Tres, zeta. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.