Halestorm’s new album is a ‘roar’
‘B ack From the Dead’ by Halestorm (Atlantic)
Lzzy Hale, the lead singer and guitarist for the heavy metal band Halestorm, is that rare breed of wild child whose path you cross at your own peril, and her aggressiveness soaks through her music.
The band’s new album, “Back From the Dead,” is not for the faint of heart, or anyone with even a trace of a headache: it’s a full-on sonic assault of screams, wailing guitars, pounding drums and booming bass.
And yet Hale manages to pull it off with a deft songwriting touch and a surprising sense of melody that belies the bombast.
The title track is the band’s likely concert opener on this summer’s tour, and begins with a roar (as many of Hale’s songs do.) She’s got a great scream, and she’s not afraid to use it, multiple times, on most songs.
Yet she actually has a beautiful singing voice that can tend to get overlooked amid the shrieks. The ballads “Terrible Things” and “Raise Your Horns” feature her tender, sultry vocals that are 180 degrees from many of her other vocals, particularly those on “Wicked Ways.”
“I Come First” sounds at first blush like a brilliant double entendre. But there’s only one entendre at work here; the song is about exactly what you think it is.
“The Steeple” is an infectious anthem/ode to the fans, a made-for-the-concert-hall sing-along with lines like “This is my church, and these are my people.”
And try as I might not to see it, Hale looks a LOT like Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider on cover of an album that will definitely be in the running for the best hard rock/metal album of the year.
“A Walk Around the Sun,” Erika Lewis (Independent)
There’s a sense of urgency in the lyrics of “A Walk Around the Sun,” a hidden gem of a country-Americana project by a singer-songwriter known previously as the singer in a brassy French Quarter busker band called Tuba Skinny.
It starts to make sense when you know her back story.
Erika Lewis learned in 2020 that she needed surgery that had the potential to damage her vocal cords. A friend urged the singer to record some songs she’d been working on before she had the operation. Things ended happily when the surgery went well, her voice intact.
The album she recorded in the meantime is a revelation.
The 11 songs Lewis wrote represent a departure from tourist-friendly New Orleans street music. They soar not just on the loveliness of her voice but on the emotional intensity of meditations on lost love and the preciousness of time.
The songs range in style from pure helpings of Patsy Cline-style country to songs with more drive that still manage to be calming. In the adventurously melodic “Wild Thing,” for example, Lewis works territory that calls the best work of Chris Isaak to mind.
On “Thief and a Liar,” she warbles beautifully in the style Cline made famous, and on “Love Song,” a somber fiddle leads her through a heartbreaking take on lost love so vivid that you feel like you are hovering overhead as she sits on the levee drinking alone.
“Mighty Mississippi bring my heart back to me,” Lewis sings. “Say a little prayer and don’t float out to sea.”
It’s that kind of aching urgency that animates an album composed and put together in the face of doubts about whether she’d sing again. It’s music that’s built to last.
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LOS ANGELES: Eminem, Lionel Richie, Carly Simon, Eurythmics, Duran Duran and Pat Benatar have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a list that also includes Dolly Parton, who initially resisted the honor.
The honorees - voted on by more than 1,000 artists, historians and music industry professionals - “each had a profound impact on the sound of youth culture and helped change the course of rock ’n’ roll,” said John Sykes, the chairman of the Rock Hall, in a statement Wednesday.
Parton had previously gone on social media to “respectfully bow out” of the process, saying she did not want to take votes away from the remaining nominees and had not “earned that right.” The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation responded by saying ballots had already been sent and it was up to the voters to decide if Parton was elected. Parton later said she would accept an induction.
In its citation, the hall called Parton “a living legend and a paragon of female empowerment,” adding that “Her crossover success broadened the audience for country music and expanded the horizons for countless artists who followed.”
Parton took to social media after the announcement to say she was “honored and humbled,” thanking the voters, saying she will work hard “to live up to the honor” and adding: “Of course I will accept it gracefully.”
To be eligible, artists are required to have released their first record 25 years prior to induction. Parton, Richie, Simon and Duran Duran were selected on their first go-round. Simon was a first-time nominee this year more than 25 years after becoming eligible. Eminem becomes the 10th hip-hop act to be inducted, making the cut on his first ballot.
Richie, a former member of The Commodores whose illustrious solo career includes pop classics like “Endless Love,” “All Night Long” and “Hello,” said being elected to the hall “is an incredible honor.” He thanked voters and fans on Instagram and said: “Congratulations to all of my fellow 2022 inductees!”
The hall also announced Wednesday that Judas Priest and Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis are getting the award for musical excellence and that Harry Belafonte and Elizabeth Cotten will be honored with the Early Influence Award.
Other artists and groups that failed this year for induction in the performer category are A Tribe Called Quest, Rage Against the Machine, Dionne Warwick, Beck, Kate Bush, DEVO, Fela Kuti, MC5 and the New York Dolls.
Parton is most associated with country music and is in the Country Hall of Fame, but she has performed songs with a rock feel. Artists who have made both the Rock Hall and Country Hall of Fame include Brenda Lee, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Chet Atkins, Hank Williams and the Everly Brothers.