British/American metal trio RAVEN will release its new album, “Metal City”, on September 18 via SPV/Steamhammer. The cover artwork for the disc is available below.
According to the label, the long-awaited follow-up to 2015’s “ExtermiNation” contains “ten metallic masterpieces tapping heavily into that ‘Wiped Out’ vein of speed, power and insanity, while taking a quantum leap forward technically and creatively in order to make the defining album of their career. Raw, unhinged and uncompromising!”
This past May, RAVEN bassist/vocalist John Gallagher told The Metal Voice about the group’s new LP: “We have had this pain-in-the-ass process of getting the new album. Just about every hurdle or impediments that you can invent got put in the way of it. I think it’s gonna blow a lot of people’s minds. We’ve got Mike Heller [FEAR FACTORY] on drums, who’s phenomenal, as people who have seen us over the last couple of years can testify. I guess you can take the live album we put out last year [‘Screaming Murder Death From Above: Live In Aalborg’], and that is a good introduction as to what we’re gonna be dealing on this new studio album. It’s fast, it’s crazy, there’s a lot of insane playing on it, and we really just went balls out all the way through. We’re incredibly happy with it. And so far, the people who have heard stuff are, like, ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ [Laughs] So, it’s a good reaction to get.”
Asked which previous RAVEN album the upcoming effort will be musically closest to, John said: “It’s basically as if we time traveled back to 1982 and were doing the album after ‘Wiped Out’, continuing in that vein. It’s got a lot of that sensibility. There’s a couple of really, really fast songs. It opens up with a killer one called ‘The Power’, and then there’s a fast one called ‘Human Race’. And there’s an epic one called ‘When Worlds Collide’, and some good rock and roll RAVEN-style as well.”
RAVEN‘s new LP will mark the band’s first with Heller, who replaced Joe Hasselvander in 2017.
Considered part of the “New Wave Of British Heavy Metal” movement of the early ’80s, RAVEN — led by Newcastle natives/brothers John Gallagher and Mark Gallagher — is perhaps best remembered for its trailblazing tours in America in the early ’80s that gave groups like METALLICA and ANTHRAX their first taste of the road.
RAVEN‘s albums “Rock Until You Drop”, “Wiped Out” and “All For One” virtually invented both the speed metal and power metal genres, with the band consistently pushing the envelope while retaining its unique sound and attack — both in the studio and in their true element: onstage.
