Picture it – you’re Halestorm, on a decade-long tear, relentlessly building momentum with benchmark albums, sold out tours which only get bigger and playing all the right support slots. And the jewel in the crown: Vicious adds it all together to send the band stratospheric with a headline arena tour in the UK off the back of breaking the attendance record at Download’s second stage. Then a pandemic punches the world in the back of the head, and everything ceases to be.
However, Lzzy Hale and co. have looked it and their tribulations in the eye and said “We can use this”. Back From the Dead has Halestorm at their darkest, heaviest and most relatable. From the opening of the title track to the closing notes of “Raise Your Horns”, album five delivers on the promise shown in the debut which was consolidated and built upon in The Strange Case Of… before adding the cement with Vicious. Now, said cement has hardened and provided us with the most solid and consistent Halestorm album to date.
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As “Back From the Dead” kicks the album into life as its mission statement, it’s a thunderous statement to prove they’re back and better than ever in a slice of pure, unfiltered, unadulterated Halestorm. As Lzzy Hale’s vocals roar in defiance across furious guitar work, the band are intent to show, more than ever before, they aren’t messing around. It comes around once more in fellow single “The Steeple” and much like 2012’s “Rock Show”, it’s a love letter to the live music experience – where our chosen genre is our religion, our venues are our places of worship, the bands our gods and the people next to us in the crowd are fellow members of the congregation. As a chest-pounding arena-ready rocker, Halestorm re-affirm their faith for live music with an extra decade of experience and maturity without re-treading old ground.
Elsewhere, “Wicked Ways” and “Strange Girl” follow in the footsteps of the opening salvo but add in a newfound layer of darkness and danger rippling under the surface. However, it’s the sombre “Terrible Things” at the halfway point which really brings the darkness to the fore. Whilst Lzzy Hale may deliver her vocals tenderly against acoustic musings, she tears strips off the human race as she watched with the rest of us what we’re capable off, yet there’s a spark of hope buried in there, offering a glimpse of hope.
Meanwhile, “I Come First” and “Psycho Crazy” cover the theme of putting yourself first, sick of being downtrodden and taken for granted, albeit the former makes AC/DC’s more innuendo-ridden moments sound downright chaiste. However, their position at the end of the album as harder numbers allow the band to dig in with newfound aggression before the album’s finale of “Raise Your Horns”. The piano-driven track revisits metaphors of live music but holds a much deeper meaning in the same way “Don’t Look Back” closed Duff McKagan’s Tenderness; Halestorm are here to tell you if it seems dark now, it won’t always be. As Lzzy Hale runs through her entire vocal register, and then some, as compassion laces her vocals, she offers a hand of support.
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Whilst Back From the Dead doesn’t change who Halestorm are, they instead ratchet everything up another notch once again, taking the lessons from the past to create this, their master piece in the true sense of the term. This, more than any previous Halestorm album, has a live intent to it where each of the eleven songs could be played between their established standards. The catharsis found in this album is writ large and so many listeners will see themselves not only in one song or another but the whole album, offering a hand of solidarity for those who struggled in the height of the pandemic.
Back From the Dead is out now
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