Prepare yourself for a metal rampage the likes of which you haven’t enjoyed in many a year as New Wave of British Heavy Metal stalwarts Raven deliver the electric mayhem of All Hell’s Breaking Loose, their 15th studio album, set for release June 30th on Silver Lining Music.
The Newcastle pioneers, formed by the Gallagher brothers (bassist/vocalist John and guitarist Mark) and rounded out by drummer extraordinaire Mike Heller have emerged from Heller’s own Heaven And Heller Studios in Los Angeles with 10 crisp, visceral metal classics, each fused with riffs, twists, turns, chaos and more hooks than all the Hellraiser movies combined (think hyperbole, ‘turn-it-UP’ and find out for yourself).
Among the stand-outs are lead single Go For The Gold with the redline pushed hard by a cavalcade of riffs and furious, percussive madness, yet behind it all a melodic journey that makes it multi-dimensional skull-crushing.
“Go For The Gold is our first single as it really represents the new album mission statement… 100% full on Raven lunacy.” enthuses John Gallagher. “If you’ve got an initial great riff, you just build from it,” explains John, “you try not to milk it to death. You want a good structure. You want a good verse with hooks, a good pre-chorus with hooks, a great chorus, and then you want little left turns here and there to spice it up. Otherwise it can sound boring. And if you have too many left turns then it turns into jazz fusion, so it’s a funny line you gotta dance on to have structure but also the chaos part as well.”
Watch and listen to, Go For The Gold, below.
What Raven have delivered with All Hell’s Breaking Loose is permission for everyone to remember exactly what it’s like to lose yourself in the healing aural waters of supreme heavy metal music, resplendent in sweat-soaked denim and leather.
“You got three guys with very strong, passionate, opinions,” offers Mark, “and when those are brought together, it’s a case of ‘iron sharpens iron.’”
“We’re very hard on ourselves,” adds John, “it had to be ‘all killer, no filler’. Absolutely every single part of every song had to make sense, had to mean something, and had to be there for a purpose.”
And All Hell’s Breaking Loose makes it clear that Raven aren’t messing around in that regard.
All Hell’s Breaking Loose will be available on 12” Black Vinyl, 12” Limited Edition Green Vinyl, CD Digipak, Tape Cassette, Digital Formats and special D2C bundles; pre-order here.
All Hell’s Breaking Loose tracklisting:
1. Medieval
2. Surf The Tsunami
3. Turn Of The Screw
4. All Hell’s Breaking Loose
5. The Far Side
6. Desperate Measures
7. Victory’s Call
8. Edge Of A Nightmare
9. Invasion
10. Go For The Gold
Follow Raven: ravenlunatics.com, facebook, twitter, instagram, spotify and youtube.
3 Responses
Raven is a great, great, NWOBHM band. Their song, “Inquisitor”, off Neat Records’ compilation “Lead Weight” was one of my first introductions to the NWOBHM era. John Gallagher, Mark Gallagher, and “Wacko” Hunter were great performers of their brand of “Athletic Rock”. And, for me, Raven were the seeds of my passion for the thrash heavy metal genre. I absolutely love Raven and got to see them twice “back in the day”.
Rattle,
A friend of mine gave me his “All For One” LP, back in the day, I remember liking a few of the songs. But I have to be honest, I haven’t played since it was given to me in the mid-80s.
Hi Dana! “All For One” is s great album, and Raven’s first Megaforce release. Your friend really did you a “solid” by gifting you the album.