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 30 via 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 the video for “Go For The Gold” below.
Title track, "All Hell’s Breaking Loose”, twists and turns with accents and flavours buried inside the chaos. Meanwhile “Surf The Tsunami” sees Heller gatecrash your eardrums with a furious flurry of his own, before some supreme twister riffs bring on the full metal chaos; “Turn Of The Screw” bounces on the upbeats before smashing you with a thunderous chorus; “The Far Side” has as classic a metal riff as you’ll hear in 2023; “Desperate Measures” is pure ’81-saturated tales of hardship and despair, if you ever wondered what Raven at the Marquee were like on a sweaty metal night in ’83; “Edge of A Nightmare” is your portal to paradise, thundering as hard as the opener “Medieval”.
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.
Tracklisting:
"Medieval"
"Surf The Tsunami"
"Turn Of The Screw"
"All Hell’s Breaking Loose"
"The Far Side"
"Desperate Measures"
"Victory’s Call"
"Edge Of A Nightmare"
"Invasion"
"Go For The Gold"
"Go For The Gold" video:
Raven are:
John Gallagher - lead vocals, bass, 12-string bass
Mark Gallagher - guitar, vocals
Mike Heller - drums
(Top photo - Raven)
