IN REVIEW: Halestorm - "Back from the Dead"

 

Over the years, my relationship with mainstream rock has had its share of ups and downs; I’ll never claim to be such a hipster as to recoil in disgust from anything that touches the modern rock radio charts, but I have admittedly grown tired of the chest-pounding, dumbed down "butt rock" that’s been the calling card of mainstream hard rock for the better part of Nickelback’s existence. That said, a cursory glance at some of the more mainstream-leaning bands I’ve covered here in the past will give you an idea of how selective I can be when it comes to this genre.

So, while reviewing Halestorm’s fifth album seems like the kind of thing that would lose me cred, I’d argue that a) I never really had that to begin with, and b) this blog has never been about earning cred, it’s about talking about music that interests me; Halestorm may not be a group of visionaries displaying peak artistic integrity, but they write heavy, melodic tunes that hit a guttural sweet spot without resorting to ham-fisted repetition and/or outdated misogyny. Lzzy Hale has real talent as a singer and a songwriter, and that her backing band leans into hard rock cliché by times isn’t a detriment to my ears.

That said, one of my personal pet peeves is a band that doesn’t evolve, and Halestorm seem quite content to stagnate sonically on Back from the Dead. Not that I’ve earned the right to complain about it, considering I came down on their third album in 2015 for veering into pop-country territory, then praised their return to rock three years later on Vicious. I realize that this kind of makes me one of the fickle, insufferable, closed-minded fans I routinely rail against on this blog, and so I will simply acknowledge that part of the problem I have with Back from the Dead is, in fact, me.

Still, for perhaps the first time in their discography, you can come into this Halestorm album expecting them to pick up where they left off and get exactly what you thought you would; kicking off with a handful of hard rocking numbers before closing the first half with a ballad, then going hard again in the second half until another emotional lighters-up ballad sends us off with misty eyes is just about a carbon copy of Vicious (albeit with one less song overall and a slightly different placement of the first ballad, if you want to get technical). Back from the Dead is a little heavier by and large, with less gloss than Vicious, but this is a very similar effort in most respects.

It’s possible that, again, the biggest contributor to these issues is my critical brain getting in the way, and I’m sure there are legions of fans that are tickled pink that Halestorm are more or less staying put stylistically. Hell, I don’t even have a recommendation for what they could have done differently; in fact, it’s entirely within the realm of reason that this is the best case scenario for the band to stay relevant with their fans and the times in 2022. Call it a case of there not being any wrong turns because, on Back from the Dead, Halestorm don’t really turn at all.

May 6, 2022 • Atlantic
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