Halestorm has spent the last sixteen years honing its unique brand of hard rock, combining metal heaviness with classic rock riffing, powerful vocals, and radio-friendly pop-rock melodies. After five albums and dozens of great songs, the Pennsylvania rockers return with their most ambitious album yet.
Everest has all the hallmarks of a Halestorm album — Lzzy Hale and Joe Hottinger’s infectious riffs, beautiful melodies, Hale’s rock-star swagger and pristine voice, and pop-rock hooks butressed by occasional metal aggression. But the album takes a step forward in its compositions. The tone is darker, and the songs are bigger, sometimes with a prog-rock grandiosity.
Everest has some of Halestorm’s heaviest moments, like the sonic mayhem of “WATCH OUT,” where a snarling metal groove in the verses gives way to a fiery chorus. From its nasty mid-tempo riffs to Hale’s gritty scream, the song is designed to whip a pit into a frenzy. The loud-soft dynamics in “I Gave You Everything” pack a punch in each jarring transition from soft and brooding to loud aggression.
Hale’s voice is still Halestorm’s greatest asset. In the soft moments, she sings with a velvety croon or impassioned soul. But that vulnerability barely hides the booming voice she unleashes in the heavy moments. Her vocal prowess is most evident in the show-stopping “Like a Woman Can,” which pumps a hard-rock attitude into a soul song. “I want someone who cries, who feels every goodbye like I do. Can you? It’s not hard to please me. Baby, this should be easy,” Hale belts over a somber piano line and Hottinger’s blues lick.
Hale and Hottinger have grown as guitarists, relying less on common chord progressions and more on unique riffs, like the jerky, staccato riffing of “K-I-L-L-I-N-G,” a song that entertains despite having the worst lyrics on the album.
Everest’s best moments come in its biggest risks, like Hale channeling Aretha Franklin on “Like a Woman Can.” Risks like the title track, which pairs repetitive, monotone verses with two scorching Hottinger guitar solos and a soaring earwig of a chorus. Hale uses climbing Mount Everest as a metaphor for perseverance. “This vicious cycle, knowing I won’t ever rest until my dying breath, ‘til I have nothing left,” she sings. Risks like contrasting the ultra-heavy thumping verses of “Fallen Star” with its soft, keyboard-based choruses.
And then there’s “Rain Your Blood On Me,” the most epic rock anthem in Halestorm’s catalog. In the feminist anthem, Hale shouts down the patriarchy with a raspy bellow that matches the intensity of music that shifts between a monotonous thump, guitar-hero riffing, and thrash metal chugging. “Bitches burning in the flames; wicked women take the blame,” Hale sings. “Devil’s daughters made for pain; scarlet letters bare the shame.”
“Rain Your Blood On Me” is as powerful musically as “Like a Woman Can” is vocally. What makes Everest special is that Halestorm strayed from the formula and found many ways to utilize the band’s talents. For fans waiting for the band to release something as good as their 2012 sophomore album, The Strange Case Of…, the wait is over. Everest has some of the best music of Halestorm’s career.
