HALESTORM – Everest (2025) *HQ*

320_1 /// 320_2 /// HQ

With HALESTORM, Pennsylvania’s current finest hard rock export, you never quite know which way the wind is going to blow until Lzzy Hale opens her mouth and reminds you why she has been the gold standard for female metal vocalists since the mid-2000s.
HALESTORM is releasing their new album “Everest“, and if Lzzy died tomorrow, and she wants you to consider that prospect on album closer ‘How Will You Remember Me’, she’d be lauded as one of this century’s biggest rock voices. Arguably its most inspiring female figure. Thankfully this sixth album, far from sealing a coffin lid, will almost certainly see Halestorm rising to new light.

What really is ”Everest” overall crowning glory is that have and continue to be genuine about their journey, not because they have manufactured profundity. Halestorm’s strength has always been their ability to make the personal feel universal, to take Lzzy’s individual struggles and transform them into rock anthems that resonate with anyone who is ever felt like an outsider fighting to be heard.
The astonishing ‘Rain Your Blood On Me’ evokes Dio re-working Audioslave, while the no-less-gripping ‘Gather The Lambs’ helps steer the quartet down new, darkly shadowed roads. ‘Shiver’, the title-track, and the slowly ballooning ‘Darkness Always Wins’ are as epic in scale as they are creative in delivery. The message is that life is no picnic. That it’s a tough climb, but an ascent worth making.

Also right up there is ‘Like A Woman Can’, which builds to an elongated, deeply felt chorus; smoky vibes bolstered by Halestorm’s considerable aural artillery. Even that’s just an aperitif for the wall-smashing of ‘Watch Out!’ and ‘K-I-L-L-I-N-G,’ surely the most frenetic, furious songs in this band’s game.
And for further proof of how planet-sized the outfit’s tireless voice is, the chest-bursting chorus in ‘I Gave You Everything’ seals the deal.

In a scene increasingly obsessed with subgenre specificity, there is something to be said for a band that just wants to write great rock songs and play them with conviction. Halestorm have never been the heaviest band in metal, but they’ve consistently been one of the most honest. In an era of manufactured authenticity, which counts for something.
Highly Recommended

1. Fallen Star
2. Everest
3. Shiver
4. Like A Women Can
5. Rain Your Blood On Me
6. Darkness Always Wins
7. Gather The Lands
8. Watch Out!
9. Broken Doll
10. K-I-L-L-I-N-G
11. I Gave You Everything
12. How You Will You Remember Me

Lzzy Hale – vocals/guitar
Arejay Hale – drums
Joe Hottinger – guitar
Josh Smith – bass

Pre order:
napalmrecords.com/english/halestorm-everest-cd.html