Album Review: Halestorm - 'Everest'
Everest is a return for Grammy winners Halestorm with their sixth full-length studio album that arrives with a tangled web of melancholy, frustration and anger that encourages a reintroduction into their unique world of chaos and mayhem.
Halestorm have been around for a while. Initially formed by siblings Lzzy and Arejay Hale in 1997 with the artists 13 and 10 years old between them, music has always been what’s banded them together. Now with guitarist Joe Hottinger and bassist Josh Smith; to get into six studio albums is no small accomplishment for any band and to have a consistent output of Halestorm is worthy of recognition. Twelve tracks full of endings and new beginnings – designed to ush boundaries and encourage an output of ready made anger and frustration for the pit.
It's dark and haunting, evolving and pushing boundaries with intensity unmatched by other artists at this level – it shows that the band are unafraid to push at every turn. From the very first verse of Fallen Star Lzzy’s singing is fantastic – able to pull audiences in to an album that feels like the band starting over from scratch and coming across as a total reset for the Nashville band – plunging them headfirst into a new chapter that puts the old era behind in favour of the new.
Everywhere you look there’s a wide variety of emotions on display. Nina Simone’s blues is the drawing point for the beautiful Like A Woman Can, and K-I-L-L-I-N-G taps into the moshpit mayhem of the raw fury. It’s raw and colossal – a real statement piece from a band growing with every step. Broken Doll taps into the vulnerable nature of it all and Lzzy pleads in I Gave You Everything that she’s “running from the ending, right back to the start,” is a slower beat for the emotional crux – “trapped inside the mirror, it made me what I am,” which then kickstarts into a fury and a roaring high tempo of “I gave you everything” – self-doubt and self-loathing coming front and centre; accusing people who have fucked up and let them down after telling them their secrets. How do you rebuild – Lzzy asks – building a castle from whatever she had left – after all that betrayal? It dips into the feeling of a breakup album at times. The two punch of I Gave You Everything into How Will You Remember Me has Lzzy switching her attention to her legacy – wondering how the band will be remembered going forward. Not everybody gets the chance to write their soundtrack to their own funeral – but it feels like Lzzy set out to deliver a epitaph to how she wanted herself and the band to be remembered. It’s sure to hit the emotional high notes live.
The single Everest packs a punch – it’s, in Halestorm’s own words – “the summit of everything we’ve fought for – every scream, every scar, every triumph. The single is US, louder and bolder and more brutally honest than ever,” pushing all the right notes – it’s not a song of hope or despair but instead a statement piece – the war may not be won in this lifetime but it’s about the transition and the battle from one lifetime to the next – the passing of the torch – equal parts epic and equal parts completely unhinged – tonally ferocious and completely brave. It’s about climbing to the top without the reward at the other end – this is a band that haven’t sold out, haven’t taken the easy route to fame – but instead present the album as their opus.
How do you follow up a tour with Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath? It’s a prospect that all bands must be asking themselves. But Halestorm are rising to the occasion – working with country connoisseur Dave Cobb with the possibility of a record that will make or break them, it’s a record that has the band thinking outside of the box and working with the trust of Cobb to craft something special. Their song Gather the Lambs benefits from the band working in rural Savannah in a cemetery for inspiration; drawing from what was carved on a headstone. The story added to it gives Gather the Lambs its motivation and staying power – the free-flowing energy that crafts Halestorm’s Everest really makes it feel like the tipping point of their career to date.
It's an album that doesn’t cater to the fans and is all the stronger for it. Everest feels like an incredibly fitting title depicting their climb to the top of rock music – not rushing the process but trusting in their talent and relationship as brother and sister to get them forward. To make it to six albums is a feat to be rewarded in its own right – and with each to have their own touch really helps the band craft a distinctive, unique feel to their methods of madness.
Words by Miles Milton-Jefferies
