New Wave Of British Heavy Metal stalwarts RAVEN will release their 15th studio album, “All Hell’s Breaking Loose”, on 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.
Among the standouts 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. 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.”
Title track “All Hell’s Breaking Loose” twists and turns with accents and flavors 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.”
“All Hell’s Breaking Loose” will be available on 12-inch black vinyl, 12″ limited edition green vinyl, CD digipak, tape cassette, digital formats and special D2C bundles.
Track listing:
01. Medieval
02. Surf The Tsunami
03. Turn Of The Screw
04. All Hell’s Breaking Loose
05. The Far Side
06. Desperate Measures
07. Victory’s Call
08. Edge Of A Nightmare
09. Invasion
10. Go For The Gold
RAVEN is:
John Gallagher: Lead Vocals, Bass, 12-String Bass
Mark Gallagher: Guitar, Vocals
Mike Heller: Drums