Folks on this side of the music industry desk will tell you that the vast majority of press releases and band biographies are loaded with hollow bullshit. Many of these essays are too bloated with adjectives, mixed metaphors and blatant flavor-of-the-month ass-kissing to be taken seriously, often peppered with keywords and band names popular at the time and space in question, or yanked from a Wikipedia heavy metal page. These things raced through my head while scanning the bio for Moonspell’s newest outing, Alpha Noir, wondering out loud more than once if the newbie dweeb hired to write it had ever heard of the band before. Dropping names like Bathory and King Diamond as influences to describe an act hailed as one of the few and true remaining old school goth metal bands was absurd to the point of insulting.

Give Alpha Noir a spin and you’ll discover the description is dead on.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” frontman Fernando Ribeiro grins. “I tend to write those things myself. It’s not that I don’t trust someone else to do it, but I like to write and I think that sometimes the people at the record labels kind of miss the point. A lot of labels have many bands, and sometimes the people that write the press releases have to do it in a rush. I’d rather make things a bit more personal by doing it myself, so I’m glad you found everything in the press release to be true (laughs). With all the metaphors and poetry and personal notes that we put into the press releases, it’s good to know that people check out the new songs and realize that we’re not just blabbering and self-praising. We really tried to give people a clear view of what’s going on with Alpha Noir.”

For fans of Moonspell’s previous efforts such as Night Eternal (2008), Darkness And Hope (2001), or the legendary Irreligious (1996), actually hearing strains of Bathory and King Diamond within new songs like ‘Opera Carne’ and ‘Lickanthrope’ is downright disconcerting. Moonspell is supposed to be a goth band.

“You know your metal,” Ribeiro laughs, unapologetic for the scare.

In actual fact, Alpha Noir is two albums in one, splitting the Moonspell personality down the middle. Where Alpha Noir is full-on metal – because no other label does it justice – the gothic stamp is definitely on the second part, dubbed Omega White. The package as a whole continues the band’s tradition of diversifying themselves with each release, but there was no way anyone could have expected Moonspell to go as far as they have in both shedding their gothic sound and embracing it simultaneously.

“This probably isn’t the logical sequel to Memorial (2006) and Night Eternal,” Ribeiro agrees. “I think there are some really intense headbanging moments on Alpha Noir, but like every Moonspell album we treated this one very seriously. When we put a new album out we have to consider the novelty of it at all times, which has to do with the fact that Moonspell was born in the underground at a time when metal was really expanding. The bands and the fans were willing to take chances with new music. As that metal scene has gotten older, sometimes I find it hard to be surprised by new bands. I think that there’s a restlessness or something that can’t be predicted that is a characteristic of Moonspell.”

Go to this location for the complete interview.

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Back when vinyl was king, it was common for bands to release 12” EPs featuring exclusive material to tide fans over while waiting for the artist’s next full length album. More often than not this material was top notch stuff rather than the uninspired cut / paste filler “bonus tracks” that often get tacked onto the end of present day releases. That said, it’s something of a pity that vocalist Sarah Jezebel Deva’s new Malediction EP is a digital-only affair, because the three songs featured reflect that era; quality music created in the interest of giving the fans something special.

Malediction is short, sweet, and to the bloody point, boasting material as good as if not better than that featured on Sarah’s previous solo outing, The Corruption Of Mercy. Lead track ‘Lies Define Us’ is a gorgeous and memorable hook-laden piece standing head and shoulders above typical goth metal fluff, featuring Soilwork frontman Björn “Speed” Strid singing clean harmonies against Sarah’s leads and clocking in under four minutes for maximum impact. In contrast, ‘When “It” Catches Up With You’ is about the Sarah Jezebel Deva band as a whole rather than being a vocal showcase, officially smacking Angtoria off its pedestal as being the strongest band-oriented work Ms. Deva has ever done thanks to riff-heavy guitars, monster drums, with everyone involved getting a chance to shine.

The icing on the cake, however – or the thorn in the eye as he’d probably dub it himself – is Cradle Of Filth frontman Dani trading lead vocals with his former backing singer on ‘This Is My Curse’. And it’s a performance guaranteed to please any fan of the Nyphetamine and Thornography albums. He could have faked his way through it and phones in a flat-headed performance, but backed by a canvas of blastbeats and black metal attitude, Little Lord Filth sings, grunts, whispers, shrieks, moans and screams his way through the track at his theatrical best. No question, COF fans will be impressed. Sarah, meanwhile, leads the charge with the sort of performance that would and should have been welcome on a Cradle Of Filth record.

It’s also worth noting that in a twisted act of fate, former Cradle Of Filth keyboardist / composer Martin Powell agreed to come on board and add his talents to Malediction. He gives the EP just the right amount of symphonics, proving that less is indeed more when compared to the majority of present day orchestral metal car crashes currently on the go.

Here’s hoping initial sales numbers will be strong enough for Listenable Records to consider printing a limited run of Malediction on vinyl, or at least on CD (in other words, BUY it, don’t steal it). It’s much too good to be restricted to the digital ether.

- ‘This Is My Curse’ is available for streaming courtesy of Dominion Magazine here.

Watch for an in-depth interview with Sarah, coming soon. We discuss the new EP and Sarah’s bandmates, Björn Strid’s and Dani Filth’s contributions to the EP, life after Cradle Of Filth, and luring Martin Powell into the Malediction production with the promise of a bar of soap.

Sarah Jezebel Deva

Björn “Speed” Strid

Dan Abela

Dani Filth

It’s rare that a commercially successful rock band is good for a surprise. The vast majority would much rather stick to a proven formula – and understandably so – than throw their fanbase a curve. Pennsylvania-based rockers Halestorm, on the other hand, took the plunge with only one official full length album under their belt. Two years after the band’s self-titled debut touched down and started a buzz, the quartet issued the six song ReAniMate covers EP, which gave the people that thought they had Halestorm nailed down something to choke on. Covers of the Skid Row classic ‘Slave To The Grind’ – now a fan favourite in the band’s nightly set – and Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Out Ta Get Me’ left many a naysayer’s jaw on the floor, Yours Truly included, largely due to the explosive delivery by vocalist/guitarist Lzzy Hale. The EP set the stage and reined in a new batch of fans for Halestorm’s second record The Strange Case Of…, which rocks harder and heavier than what folks expect of a so-called “average” mainstream band.

“We chose the six songs on ReAniMate for all sorts of reasons,” says Lzzy, agreeing that it was one of the building blocks going in to make The Strange Case Of… “The cover of The Beatles’ ‘She’s So Heavy’ was the first song the guys and I ever jammed to as a band. The Heart cover of ‘All I Wanna Do…’ used to be my go-to karaoke song; the guys would sign me up in hopes of getting free beer from people who liked the way I sang. ‘Slave To The Grind’ and ‘Out Ta Get Me’ were some of my influences, growing up on my parents’ music, and they had tempos that we’ve never experimented with before. In turn, they directly inspired our fastest original song to date, ‘Love Bites (So Do I)’. ‘Hunger Strike’ was a nod to one of Joe’s (Hottinger / guitars) influences, and the Lady Gaga cover (‘Bad Romance’) was the #1 most requested song in a poll we put up for our fans to determine what our final pick for the EP was. It’s a great mix.”

Considering that Halestorm gained notoriety with radio-safe hits like ‘I Get Off’ and the Twilight-fuelled ‘Familiar Taste Of Poison’, choosing ‘Love Bites (So Do I)’ as the first single off The Strange Case Of… was a ballsy move. Folks that respect the band as a live act but have no use for the debut album have embraced the track, which is Halestorm’s take on ‘Slave To The Grind’ at its heart.

“‘Love Bites’ is a great ‘re-introduction’ song. It was a reflection of what people saw at our live shows while touring on our last album cycle. We wanted to give people a first single that was a step up from our last recording, but was familiar to the energy they get from us live.”

On the flipside, the new album boasts the surefire crowd-pleaser ‘Here’s To Us’. It’s one of those gems that has “hit” written all over it with the potential to cross over between mainstream rock and country markets. And depending on how it performs, the song could potentially dump Halestorm in the “Ballad Band” box; an albatross Nickelback has been trying to lose for years in spite of their heavier material. For her part, Lzzy isn’t concerned about being pigeonholed.

“I’m prepared for the possibility, and I’m not worried. This record has given us an opportunity to be both equal and on opposite sides of the spectrum. We’ve proven to ourselves that we can pull off exposing the duality which is Halestorm, and that nothing is impossible. ‘Here’s To Us’ is beautiful song, but it has the spunk of a metalhead kid. I’m excited to see what happens once it’s released as a single.”

Being up front and female puts the lion’s share of attention on Lzzy on any given day, which is to be expected. That attention has increased over the last year, as her tooth and nail performances – equal parts Joan Jett, Corey Taylor, and early Skid Row-era Sebastian Bach – have become a Halestorm trademark, putting many of her female and male peers to shame. Asked if she ever feels the pressure to deliver the same show every night thanks to the rampant YouTube coverage, Lzzy is admirable in her honesty.

“Of course! I still get antsy every night before a gig. I’ve always been a 110% kinda girl. I want to give my all to an audience, even if it’s in Middle-Of-Nowhere, Texas for 10 people in the house. There’s no other way to be but all in.”

Taking nothing away from her bandmates, it must be something of a battle in letting people know Halestorm is a band and not Lzzy Hale & Co.

“It’s a grand balance,” says Lzzy. “I don’t mind the attention, and neither do my guys. My band respects and encourages the media’s focus on me, but I feel like we do a great job keeping everyone in the light. You don’t really have a choice but to notice my little brother (Arejay) on drums; if you’ve ever seen us live, you know what I mean (laughs).”

Fans of Lzzy’s on-stage performances – particularly anyone who grew up in and around the ‘80s cock rock / hair metal scene in North America – may be surprised to learn she credits her vocal personality to a veteran of that era. It turns out that Steve Whiteman of the Maryland-based band Kix, who was and is still known for his over-the-top stage presence and pipes to match, was her vocal coach.

“He was my vocal coach for two years, when I was 17-18 years old,” Lzzy reveals, “and he’s still a great mentor of mine. I owe everything that I’m able to pull off every night to that man. He’s amazing. I recommend him to anyone. He introduced me to what I was born with, and taught me all that I could do with that gift.”

Her ties to the metal world don’t stop with Whiteman and the Halestorm’s cover catalogue. During the recordings for Adrenaline Mob’s official debut, Omertá, drummer Mike Portnoy (ex-Dream Theater) invited Lzzy to trade off lead vocals with singer Russell Allen (Symphony X) for a cover of Duran Duran’s ‘Come Undone’. She considers it a privilege to have been asked and doesn’t take the experience for granted.

“Singing with Adrenaline Mob is the ultimate honour,” says Lzzy. “These guys could’ve picked anyone to sing for that song, but they chose me. I’m very humbled by that. I had to put my big girl boots on and go and give ‘em everything I’ve got for that one.”

Photos taken from Halestormrocks.com and the band’s official Facebook page.

Check out my review of The Strange Case Of… here.

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This interview is testament to the fact that no matter how cutting edge present day technology may be, it’ll never replace old school principles.

Booked for a phone interview in the midst of a European tour, Accept guitarist Wolf Hoffmann dutifully took on the task during a travel day, only to be confronted with a mobile signal that refused to cooperate as the band’s tour bus hurtled down one of Germany’s highways. Thus, two dropped calls later and Hoffmann questioning the wisdom of interviews being scheduled while the band is in transit, he opted not to call back a third time, leaving BW&BK with half an interview and a half-baked story. Fast forward 24 hours to an unplanned and completely unexpected phone call from Hoffmann, settled in his pre-show (and stationary) hotel room, who had chosen to step up of his own free will and finish the job rather than write us off as a digital-age hiccup.

Not that Accept desperately needs the coverage. Hoffmann is certainly happy to have it, but the buzz surrounding the band’s new album, Stalingrad, is as loud and in-you-face as the justified hype their rousing 2010 comeback, Blood Of The Nations.

“I guess we’re just firing on all cylinders at the moment,” muses Hoffmann. “We were away for quite some time, so maybe that recharged out batteries enough to give us the energy to keep going like this, but sometimes I ask myself how we’ve managed to do it again. I don’t know. We just go out and do it.”

Stalingrad marks Accept’s second outing with vocalist Mark Tornillo, who replaced original singer Udo Dirkschneider behind the mic for the reunion when the U.D.O. frontman made it brutally clear he wasn’t interested. Months of touring behind classic and new Blood Of The Nations material quite naturally tightened the bonds of this new Accept incarnation, suggesting the band was much more focused going in to do Stalingrad.

“It wasn’t dramatically different,” Hoffmann says of the creative process. “The only difference was that we were, as you said, a little more in tune with what we were going for. When we made Blood Of The Nations we were fishing a little bit; where does Accept belong in 2010? We weren’t sure if we should go the totally old school way or of we should try to incorporate some newer elements in out sound. But, because everything worked out so well with Blood Of The Nations we kind of decided not to change a winning formula. We just tried to come up with new songs that were as good as the one on Blood Of The Nations. The ideas on Stalingrad are fresh along the same lines, and that was our goal.”

Of course, no Accept release would be complete without a few people waiting for the band to sewer out the way they did forever and a day ago with Eat The Heat and David Reece in 1989.

“Yeah, but people are always afraid,” Hoffmann scoffs. “Last time out they were afraid we couldn’t deliver at all, now they were afraid we couldn’t deliver again… (laughs). Somebody’s always skeptical initially, wondering about the album title and so on, but then they hear the album and everybody’s excited. The end result is always what matters.”

It has to feel good knowing they’ve silenced Accept’s detractors with Stalingrad, one would assume for good. Particularly when you consider Blood Of The Nations bitchslapped the hard core pre-release skeptics into awestruck fanboy worship.

“Oh yeah, man,” he laughs. “I don’t think you could have more skepticism than what we had when we first announced that we were going to reunite. We got hit pretty hard by the wave of naysayers and criticism. I actually had to tune out at one point because I couldn’t stand the comments anymore. I found it pathetic and sad that people would make up their minds about us before they’d even heard anything. I feel vindicated, sure, and we had quite a few people practically making public apologies to us, which was very cool (laughs).”

Go to this location for the complete story.

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Call it a safe bet that a fair number of progressive metal fans feel slighted by having two giants of the genre – vocalist Russell Allen (Symphony X) and Mike Portnoy (ex-Dream Theater) – slamming down ton of bricks modern-edged metal with nary a 5/8 time signature or widdly keyboard flourish in sight. Nope, this is feelgood freight train mayhem minus the seatbelts done up old school, with the dynamic prog duo and guitarist Mike Orlando relying on musicality rather than gutteral aggression and the same old boring-ass downtuned chords to get their message across. Allen is a monster right out of the gate, his melodic bellow on lead-off tracks ‘Undaunted’ and ‘Psychosane’ laying the groundwork for some of the strongest material of his career (and wiping those damn Allen/Lande albums from memory). Orlando was either schooled in Stuck Mojo, or the band’s guitarist Rich Ward – who was in Adrenaline Mob for about 5 minutes – made a lasting impression on his songwriting. When it comes down to the groove crunch, and there’s plenty of it, Orlando’s shred is also an echo of Zakk Wylde, giving folks a welcome taste of Black Label Society. With Portnoy providing the backbone for the Allen/Orlando-penned tunes, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Adrenaline Mob’s overall sound is far and away from your average balls-out 4/4 metal band.

It’s interesting to note that for all the pounding and punishment served up on Omertá, tracks like ‘Indifferent’ and ‘All On The Line’ could do well on commercial radio avenues or at least attract folks weaned on the whole Three Doors Down / Shinedown hype machine. Meanwhile, the Mob’s cover of Duran Duran’s ‘Come Undone’ (featuring Halestorm vocalist Lzzy Hale turning in a stellar guest spot) is a scorching top-notch update on the original hit, with more than enough bite to scare away your average programming director.

In the end it’s the heavier tracks like ‘Undaunted’, ‘Feelin’ Me’, ‘Down To The Floor’, ‘Psychosane’, ‘Hit The Wall’ and ‘Freight Train’ that leave a lasting impression. Allen is in clearly his element, while Orlando is a beast destined to become a much bigger name as Adrenaline Mob chugs forward. And even though Portnoy could have phoned in his performance, you get the impression he had a stupid amount of fun crushing heads rather than sorting through a mountain of prog metal details to get to the end.

Fave tracks: ‘Undaunted’, ‘Come Undone’, ‘Feelin’ Me’, ‘Freight Train’, ‘Psychosane’

When Trans-Siberian Orchestra / Savatage guitarist Chris Caffery refers to Tears Of The Sun, he’s not talking about a new sadboy love song he’s just written, or taking a shot at launching a Broadway play. Nope. Tears Of The Sun is, in fact, a Caffery-created hot sauce that has gone from his kitchen to the stores through a series of fortunate coincidences. And unlike a lot of “celebrity” marketed products – which usually feature little or no actual input from the star in question even though his/her name is slapped on the label – Caffery can lay claim to having created Tears Of The Sun hot sauce from scratch.

“All of it is my recipe, actually, because I’ve been cooking my entire life,” says Caffery. “Steve Seabury at High River Sauces is responsible for getting it out there. The whole idea of making the hot sauce company that he has came about while he was managing some of my solo stuff and dipping his feet into the food business at the same time. I gave him some of the hot sauce I’d made at a business meeting, and he really liked it. From there Steve eventually got into doing it as a business, but this recipe is 100% mine. I measured the ingredients and sent it to the guy that was making it; they cooked it off of that. I had them tweak it a little bit because I wasn’t completely happy with the way it came out, and we ended up with the hot sauce we have now.”

“It’s not like I’m just stamping my name on a bottle,” he continues. “In fact, I didn’t put my name on it at all because I didn’t want it to be presented as ‘Here, a musician put his name on some salsa.’ I wanted to make something that would actually get taken seriously, and it won two really big national hot sauce awards since it hit the market; Best New Hot Sauce Of The Year and Best Fruit-Based Habanero Sauce. I think that if we would have said it’s Chris Caffery’s Hot Sauce, that wouldn’t have happened.”

In a separate interview, Seabury offered some additional details as to how he and Caffery came to work together on Tears Of The Sun.

“Chris and I have known each other for a long time. He was looking to release his solo records, so I helped him out with getting a digital deal. When I was putting together the Mosh Potatoes Cookbook I asked him to be part of it. We’re both very much metal heads and food junkies. I met him up in the city to catch up with him and he pulled out a mason jar full of hot sauce. It was an amazing sauce. We both discussed or passion for hot sauces. About a year later, after making my own hot sauces and with the cookbook doing really well, my friends and family were pushing me to go commercial with my sauces. So one day I decided to do just that.”

“I’m one of the owners of the Metal Alliance Tour and I decided that it would be awesome to sell my sauces on the tour and see what people thought. It just took off from there. The next thing I knew I was getting my sauces sold on the Mayhem Tour, Vans Warped Tour and the Throwdown Tour. Chris and I were speaking about making his sauce. We traded notes, samples and other ideas and I finally released Tears Of The Sun. We’re now discussing about working together on some other stuff because Chris as a real talent for making some great sauces.”

Caffery, who only has small windows of time to take care of hot sauce business due to a rigorous touring schedule, credits Seabury for turning Tears Of The Sun into a talked-about product. At press time it was only available in the US due to high (therefore prohibitive) international shipping costs, but Seabury confirmed that he’s looking for ways to service the worldwide market. He has also launched the new Top Fuel Verde Sauce in collaboration with Ratt frontman Stephen Pearcy and Food Network chef Chris Santos.

“Steve’s a real go-getter,” he warns. “Just watch, he’s going to do something huge with this company. He’s extremely motivated, and I’m so proud of what this dude has done with it. He’s taken something that was just an idea and ran with it. He had a High River Sauces party in New Jersey a while ago and it was crazy to see the buzz he has going. He’s got a lot of good things going on, and the foodie world is a booming little business.”

“People need to eat,” Caffery adds, “and the advantage it has over the music industry is that if somebody likes your hot sauce and they finish it, they’ll go any buy another one. You can’t download hot sauce (laughs).”

Follow Caffery and check out his music on Facebook here. Check out the Caffery solo classic, ‘Pisses Me Off’.

Go to this location to check out what High River Sauces has to offer. US residents can purchase their products via the site.

It’s recommended that folks outside the US find some American friends and suck up to their inherently good natures in order score the hot sauces while Seabury solves the international distribution situation.

Show Caffery and High River Sauces some love here.

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Rae issued the following via Metal Review:

“When I try to put my experience from Ypres Metal Fest into words, everything from that night and the days leading up to it seems to blur together into a mess of emotions that I can’t properly articulate. As those reading this may know, David Gold had asked me to play drums for Woods of Ypres in support of the brilliant album Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light. I accepted without hesitation, and my days quickly filled with practicing and making plans with him, Joel Violette, and Brendan Hayter. For each of us, being in Woods was a dream come true, and we were greatly looking forward to being a part of the band together. It all felt like the beginning of something extraordinary.

Ever since the world lost David on December 21st, my life has been different. There were no more enthusiastic emails from David discussing our upcoming European tour. Our interactions that used to occur almost daily ceased completely, and I felt whiplashed from the sudden void that his absence created. As I scrambled to piece my life back together in Boston, I barely had time to wrap my mind around what had happened. Since then, there are certain Woods of Ypres songs that I haven’t been able to play without crying, and there have been many feelings I’ve had to sort through. It is still a process. I’ve come to realize that everyone who was connected to David seems to be drifting together on ‘The Sea of Immeasurable Loss’. But being a part of the Ypres Metal Fest gave me so much more than closure: It gave me a chance to better understand the man that David Gold was. I’m so humbled to know that he trusted me to play drums for Woods. It’s been said time and time again, but his legacy will live on forever. He had so many talents, and he was so deeply loved. I weep for the potential that was lost, and for the friendship that could have been, but I am eternally grateful for the people I’ve met and performed with on this journey.

Finding myself sitting under the CN Tower, rehearsing with Woods of Ypres guitarist Joel Violette on a sunny Thursday afternoon was surreal, as was meeting so many of David’s closest friends and family at the Woods 5 listening party in Toronto. Although it was tragedy that brought us to both Toronto and Sault Ste Marie, the light that stemmed from my collaboration with Joel will illuminate our future projects together. He is a superb musician, and a fantastic person. I feel so lucky to have met him, the person who wrote so many beautiful moments on Woods 5, and who never hesitated to share his stories of David with me.”

Click here for more.

Voldamares posted the following message along with the footage he shot at the tribute show in Toronto:

“David Gold, founder of one of Canada’s best metal bands, Woods Of Ypres, passed away of December 21st 2011. A celebration of David’s life and a tribute memorial concert took place on April 5th, 2012 for friends, family, and fans. It was held at The Annex Wreckroom in Toronto. I was honored to be present and perform. I videotaped each band’s performance and attempted to catch a bit of the feeling of that night. I also taped David’s mothers speech at the end. I did this so you who were unable to attend could still witness what took place and remember David as we did. He was a great friend, a brilliant musician and a proud Canadian. May his music live on forever.”

The bands that performed were as follows:

Hallows Die – ‘The Northern Cold’
Panterfaust – ‘A Metting Place And Time’
Pagan Ritual – ‘The Shams Of Optimism’
Eclipse Eternal – ‘Crossing The 45th Parallel’
Kittie – ‘Everything I Touch Turns To Gold (Then To Coal)’
Sixes & Sevens – ‘You Were The Light’
Bolero – ‘Allure of the Earth’
Empyrean Plague – ‘Shedding The Deadwood’
Musk Ox w/ Paul Kuhr – ‘You Are Here With Me (In This Sequence Of Dreams)’
Gypsy Chief Goliath – ‘Suicide Cargoload’
November’s Doom – ‘Wet Leather’

Check out the complete show here. Click here for more on Woods Of Ypres, David Gold and the band’s new album, Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light.

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When Halestorm surfaced in 2009 with their self-titled major league debut – after a decade in the trenches creating a buzz – they hit a home run with fans of modern day radio rock. The band was immediately lumped into the Nickelback / Shinedown section of the bus and rewarded with a legion of fans for their trouble. Safe, predictable and formulaic, they became a success through a mix of pushing the right commercial buttons, good looks, and touring their collective asses off on some big-name road trips. For all the accolades, however, Halestorm was considered by those listening from the sidelines as a solid act but not worth writing home about. The release of the ReAniMate covers EP in 2011 punched a king-sized hole in the “safe and predictable” tag-line, scaring the hell out of the naysayers (and some fans) with wonderfully obnoxious covers of anthems ‘Slave To The Grind’ (Skid Row) and ‘Out Ta Get Me’ (Guns N’ Roses), and a ballsy rendition of The Beatles’ classic ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’. The live shows around the release sent a clear message that in spite of popular fluff in their repertoire, Halestorm is a tooth and nail rock band capable of bringing the roof down around your ears.

For anyone that didn’t jump on board at the beginning of the Halestorm trip, new outing The Strange Case Of… is exactly that: strange. It kicks off with a tip of the hat to the fans of all things heavy with ‘Love Bites (So Do I)’, essentially daring rivet-heads everywhere not to get roped in by the up-tempo shred and vocalist/guitarist Lzzy Hale’s rant-tastic delivery. Second track ‘Mz. Hyde’ is just as much of a surprise thanks to a chugging Stray Cats groove (!), followed by the soaring crush of ‘I Miss The Misery’ and the too-Papa-Roach-for-its-own-good rocker, ‘Freak Like Me’. Only four songs in, it’s clear as to why Lzzy is considered to be one of, if not the best female vocalist on the scene today. Her delivery is classic Joan Jett attitude mixed with Corey Taylor intensity (as needed) and a young Sebastian Bach’s insane vocal range. Everything you hear has been and can be pulled off live, with interest.

The weirdness of The Strange Case Of… strolls in with the delivery of three (!!) back-to-back-to-back mid-album ballads (‘Beautiful With You’, ‘In Your Room’, ‘Break In’), effectively stopping the freight train momentum cold. Wading through the sap, it feels as if someone in a suit ham-fisted the running order while muttering “There’s gotta be hit around here somewhere…” The band would have been better off shelving two of the songs for bonus material at a later date, particularly since the country-rock closing track ‘Here’s To Us’ (coming to a cover band near you, mark my words) is a monster ballad with “HIT” scrawled all over it. Credit where it’s due, they recover nicely with the brilliant ‘You Call Me A Bitch Like It’s A Bad Thing’ and ‘Daughters Of Darkness’, featuring Lzzy doing a bang-up job as a satanic cheerleader on the latter.

Now, here’s the kicker…

In spite of the complaints above, the damn thing works as a complete package. No bloody idea how or why, but in spite of my claims to being Metal To The Core, the Lord Of Eternal Grimness and the dood who puts anger in the word “dangerous” Halestorm have won me over. The ballads remain annoying considering how they’re placed, but it’s possible to listen with half-an-ear and not want to reach for the “skip” button. And admittedly, ‘In Your Room’ is a solid interlude and will remain that way so long as Glee leaves it the fuck alone.

One more album of this quality with the trademark on-stage fireworks to match and Halestorm will be headlining the big, big rooms, because in the end this is full-on bad-ass arena rock, even in the quietest moments.

Fave tracks: ‘Love Bites (So Do I)’, ‘Mz. Hyde’, ‘Here’s To Us’, ‘You Call Me A Bitch Like It’s A Bad Thing’, ‘Daughters Of Darkness’

It’s fair to say that former Venom bandmates Tony “Demolition Man” Dolan (vocals/bass) and Jeff “Mantas” Dunn (guitars) do their best work as a unit. There are folks that labelled Dolan a pretender to original / current Venom singer Cronos’ pincushion throne when he stomped in for three albums from 1989 – 1992 (Prime Evil, Temples Of Ice, The Waste Lands), but Dolan is still recognized as an integral part of the band’s history. The fans were reminded of this in 2004 when Dolan joined Dunn’s new albeit short-lived project, Mantas. It was a venture that died before its time, largely regarded as a nice try and not much else. When the buzz of another reunion project started up in 2010, however – this time with ex-Venom drummer Antton Lant in the mix – people were all ears, particularly since the trio had chosen to work under the banner Prime Evil as a tip of the hat to their collective past. One name change and Lant’s unfortunate but amicable departure later, Dolan and Dunn are in arguably better form than ever with Mpire Of Evil.

“We had a long discussion before anything got off the ground,” Dolan admits. “Every time we’ve tried to get back together it’s been because we wanted to, and every time we stopped it was because of some other fucker, never because of us. The Mantas thing for example; we did the album (Zero Tolerance), we shot a video, we did the Earthshaker Festival in Germany, but when we got back it became apparent to me rather quickly that the record company (Demolition Records) might not be spending the money promoting the album they way they should have been. I told them that if they didn’t invest in it, thing were going to go the same way they always have. We had a big discussion with management and the record company, and I wouldn’t let it go. I kept bringing it up and they got so pissed off at me in the end, thinking that I’d become a bit of a problem saying they should do this and that. The label eventually told Jeff that he either dropped me or they were going to drop the band.”

“I told Jeff that he’d made a good album and I wanted the label to see the potential in it, and if that meant I had to walk away so they didn’t kill it, so be it. The album was bigger than me, so I walked away. They carried on, did another video, went to Japan, and in the meantime Jeff got a German manager. She was great, and she went straight to Demolition and told them everything that I’d told them. The next day Jeff got a letter saying ‘Right, we’re not gonna keep you anymore.’ The label dropped him right there. Fuck me, you know? I might as well have stayed.”

Following the Mantas fiasco Dolan dabbled in a number of projects, including an Atomkraft anthology released through Neat Records in 2005, and an Atomkraft EP issued in 2011 featuring a cover of the Thin Lizzy classic ‘Cold Sweat’ as its centerpiece. And somewhere in between – 2010 to be exact – the Venom-bled wheels began to turn once again, putting Dolan on a much needed collision course with Dunn.

“Jeff was doing his own project, Dryll, and when Antton came in they started thinking about giving me a shout. Jeff deliberated for ages and he finally called me; we just chatted the way you and I are doing right now, and then he started telling me about what he was doing with Dryll, about working with Antton again and having guest vocalists but needing a permanent vocalist and a bassist. It took me several minutes before the penny dropped and I realized he was talking about me (laughs).”

“There were things that I’d wanted to do before Mpire Of Evil, but I didn’t have the time and I suppose I didn’t have the focus,” Dolan adds. “I was also thinking that everybody in the business is up to something because I had some bad experiences with the Venom thing, Atomkraft and Neat Records. I was wondering if it was worth the displeasure. I had to think about it very seriously. The three of us worked well together, so it was tempting. And when they told me there were no record labels involved at that point, nobody telling them what to do, that sold me on it.”

“We had fun doing it, and that’s what has always drawn me and Jeff to play together,” Dolan says of getting back to business. “Our styles bounce off each other quite quickly; Jeff quite technical and he likes really tight tempos and tight changes. Venom was like throwing an egg at a wall musically, which was great, but Jeff has progressed as a musician and his style has opened up completely since the Venom days. He’s all about keeping things clean, and I love that. The tight twists and turns, the play on the dynamics, I love it, and that’s what I’ve always loved about metal. I mean, listen to the opening of Exodus’ Bonded By Blood; the slow build, then snap and bang, you’re into the first track. My fucking heart jumps every time I hear that (laughs).”

Mpire Of Evil’s debut album, Hell To The Holy, shines due to the fact that Dolan and Dunn weren’t trying to recapture or outdo their Venom past. It’s a different beast, rooted in traditional metal with thrash-like tendencies rather than trying to cash in on the classic Venom’s satanic Motörhead vibe.

“We were interested in seeing how people responded,” says Dolan. “Because it’s the three of us, we knew everyone was thinking it’s going to be another Venom record. In some corners people were screaming for that. We had some great album reviews at the very start, which was wonderful, but I remember reading a review from one black metal journalist that just ripped the shit out of it. He said the album was a piece of shit, it sucked, it was fucking pedestrian, it’s boring, and I came away from it saying ‘Thank fuck for that.’ Yes, we’re not black metal, and if we or the record company had tried to put us in that box we would have been sunk. This is more traditional metal, yes, but we just took a different approach to it.”

With over 30 years in the trenches, Dolan has paid his dues and is well aware of how quickly and completely the music industry can rip artists to shreds depending on the cards being played. He freely admits to being apprehensive about getting back in the game yet again, but when asked if Mpire Of Evil has fulfilled his expectations, he can only laugh.

“Funnily enough, yes. I’m really loving this more than I thought I would. When I was younger and doing this, Atomkraft had limited success. We had shit distribution, so if people can’t hear you they don’t know you’re around, and when you turn up in town opening for a band everyone knows they want you to get it over with really quick. That causes a problem, but Atomkraft enjoyed that aspect of it because we had to turn it over every single time. It was never easy for us, we always had to work really hard and we never took it lightly. The thing is, when that’s all going on you don’t realize how much fun you’re having, so when you look back there’ll be holes in it. You think ‘Fuck, why didn’t I take my time?’ It’s like eating the best steak you’ve ever had at a restaurant and just wolfing it down. It’s just a memory after that, and you always want to go back there to have another one and eat it really slowly. When you do get back it’s different; they put the steak in front of you and it’s just not the same. I’ve found the restaurant and it’s going to be the same steak, only this time the chef’s a little bit better than he was (laughs). This steak’s going to be so much juicier and I’m going to eat it really, really slow (laughs).”

At press time, Mpire Of Evil had just wrapped up a North American tour supporting UK countrymen Onslaught. A small scale tour, yes, but a big deal in that it was booked well in advance of Hell To The Holy’s release. The fans were treated to a set consisting of new material and classic Venom tracks, which went over a storm. For Dolan, it was his first real tour since 1988; far too long to be off the road as far as he’s concerned. He offers a look back at Mpire Of Evil’s first official step into the ring…

“Antton’s band Def-Con-One played a London festival show and our label was coming over to see us. We’d been recording but we hadn’t rehearsed, and Antton suggested that we jump on stage at the end of their set to a couple song. We decided to do ‘Hell To The Holy’ and ‘Black Metal’, but we didn’t get together and rehearse for it. We each learned our own versions of the songs, and when we went up at the end of the show we didn’t watch each other or anything like that. We played as if we’d been doing the songs together all our lives. It was great.”

“However, when we walked off stage me and Jeff were bent over gasping for breath, and I remember saying, ‘Fuck me… that was only two songs?’ (laughs).”

Promo photos by Enzo Mazzeo.

Live photo courtesy of Mike Bax and the kick-ass Lithium Magazine. Used with kind permission.

For news and and information on Mpire Of Evil go to this location.

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Like any serious band, the members of Toronto-based trio Modified – Tricia Stanley (vocals), Anthony Xander (guitars/vocals), James “Jones” Rose (drums) – are fuelled by their individual rock star dreams. Those aspirations are tempered, however, by keeping their collective feet firmly planted in the real world. Every step they’ve taken since the release of their EP debut Cruel Intentions in 2009 has been with a goal in mind rather than to prove a point to curious people watching from the sidelines. Battle Of The Bands competitions, sharing the stage with screamo, pop rock and death metal bands, shooting live-off-the-floor studio footage or an official video clip, Modified have taken on the music scene with a professional and thought-out approach unexpected in a young band still learning the ropes.

Ironically, Tricia sent out a message via Facebook a month prior to this interview stating that Modified were finished with Battle Of The Bands competitions from here on out. Not quite a rant, but a clear indication the band has had enough of being a number on a ballot.

Tricia: “I’m not pissed off, but it just seemed like we were getting bombarded by these promoters coming to us all at once saying ‘Do you wanna play this show?’ which was always followed by ‘Here’s the catch…’ It’s not like: ‘We love your band, we believe in you guys.’ It all comes down to how much money they can make off us. I know that’s the reality of the business, but I feel we’re past the stage in our lives where we can drive around the city for two weeks selling tickets. I don’t like it, so I’d rather not be involved in that part of it. And half the time it’s not a true contest; it comes down to how many friends you bring and whose ass you’re kissing. If it was a true contest where you could get something significant out of it to help the band, that would be fine, but we just don’t have time for that.”

The new self-titled debut album, released at the end of 2011, consists of the five songs featured on the Cruel Intentions EP and six new tracks. It’s a move that may look questionable on paper, but has proven to be a solid introduction to the band for those that have been oblivious to Modified until now.

Anthony: “Like you said, we take things one step at a time and make sure that everything we do is the best possible decision. We’re constantly writing music. We’ve probably written 60 or 70 songs, so it’s not a case of having a lack of material at all. We just came to the conclusion at some point that instead of releasing EPs and demos, let’s put those five songs out there with the six new ones. I guess it looks a little bit better, and we had the chance to re-master the old songs. We feel they’re still a good selling point, so why abandon them?”

Tricia: “And a lot of people haven’t even heard those older songs before now. They’re only old to our 100 friends around Toronto (laughs). We actually set out just to do three songs for financial reasons; paying for a producer/engineer is expensive. Anthony and especially James really wanted to have a full length album, which is where we came up with the idea to combine the songs. It was kind of a last-minute thing. We didn’t know exactly what we were going to do, but we had to keep going because it had been long enough since we’d released any new material. We would have loved to put out 11 brand new songs, but we need to win a lottery first. The three songs turned into five songs because we brought back ‘Hollow’, which is an old Modified song…”

Probably the heaviest song on the album. Not at all what people would expect after hearing ‘Running From Myself’ or ‘When I Wake’, and it’s this broad dynamic that makes Modified stand out in a crop of new talent.

Anthony: “That’s the first song that Modified ever wrote, before Trish was even in the band. One of our key intentions with our music is to not only have vocal hooks, but to have guitar and drum hooks as well. I think that’s lacking in a lot of new music; there are no guitar riffs anymore, no cool little drum hooks. We try and do what sounds good instead of thinking that we need to focus on the vocals. Every element is important, not just one element. We’re also very spontaneous when we write. We don’t really have anything in mind when we start. Like the riff on ‘Running From Myself’… it came out and it sounds good, so I don’t care if it’s reggae.”

Tricia: “We don’t like to commit to an idea just because it’s there. Quite often Anthony will write a song and I’ll make him change the verse 75 times (laughs).”

Anthony: “She’s not exaggerating. Sometimes I’ll write 10 different verses for a song and eight different choruses. It’s ridiculous, but we’re very on top of the quality of the songs. We want everything to sound really good.”

Modified’s “let’s see what sticks” approach to their music makes them a head-scratcher for people that prefer to have their music stamped with a label and shoved in an easy-to-find box. Not surprisingly, they remain unapologetic for making people think before filing them on a shelf.

Anthony: “We’re not a formulaic band. We’re artists. Obviously, we want to write catchy music that is accepted by the masses, but we also want to write songs that we’re happy with as musicians. It won’t be cookie cutter Three Days Grace-type stuff because that gets old really fast. I’d liken our aspirations to that of a band like Muse. If you listen to them, they have metal elements in their sound, classic rock, all kinds of stuff going on. I guess we have a similar approach.”

Tricia: “We all came from different backgrounds, and they influence the Modified sound. I came from a pop band, Anthony has more of a metal background, and James came more from a classic rock band. We all have our own styles and I guess that comes through.”

Which makes the live show crossover into the realms of metal and everywhere in between a relatively easy, if not exactly comfortable switch of the gears.

Tricia: “It’s true. We play a lot of metal shows and most of the time I’m the only chick there (laughs). It’s odd playing on the same bills as these heavy bands, but then we’ll go out and play with rock and pop-oriented female fronted bands. We were booked a while ago by Noel Peters at Inertia to open for Otep, and then we got booked to open for Halestorm. They’re completely different acts. We didn’t end up playing the Otep show because she was sick and had to cancel, but we did the Halestorm gig. That show was great and we got a lot of new fans out of it. It was pretty exciting, and it was a last minute show where we only found out about it three days before.”

For the immediate future, Modified are mapping out the rest of 2012 with live gigs on their own terms – or as close as they can get without losing their shirt – and building on the buzz created by their new video for ‘Die To Resist’.

Anthony: “We’re definitely looking at playing more shows in Ontario, maybe into Quebec. Sort of like a 401 tour, a St. Catharines to Montreal kind of thing. We’re probably going to work the shit out of Ontario until we find proper label support or management to help us. We would go to Europe or Japan tomorrow if there was a demand for it, so we’re just going to work our asses off as we always have and make more noise here at home.”

Tricia: “We going to try and get out there this spring and summer to really push this album. We’re going to do another video, and we’re talking about doing one new song just to keep things going. We don’t have a complete game plan at the moment, but we really want to start shopping the album. And if the labels tell us to screw off, at least we tried. We at least have something to show people.”

Check out Modified’s video for ‘Die To Resist’ here, pick up the new album via iTunes and CDBaby.com.

Visit Modified on Facebook here.

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