Not many singers would have the balls to cover the Metal God himself, Mr. Rob Halford. That said Halestorm’s LzzyHale isn’t just any singer, she is fearless and possesses a set of golden metal pipes that allows her to pull off Judas Priest’s “Dissident Aggressor” with conviction.
Pennsylvania’s Halestorm have just released ReAniMate 2.0, a six song “covers” EP that sees these rockers selecting from a broad range of influences. Covering the aforementioned Judas Priest, a killer version of AC/DC’s “Shoot To Thrill” and shock rocker Marilyn Manson’s “1996” are pretty much in Halestorm’s wheelhouse of balls to the wall melodic hard rock style.
The other three tracks veer off in surprising directions with outstanding results. Fleetwood Mac’s “Gold Dust Woman” gets injected with a new life, falling somewhere between Stevie’s original version and Hole’s harder over driven version. Halestorm’s stays close to the original with just a little more edginess that I really enjoyed.
Pat Benatar gets a nod with a beautiful version of “Hell is For Children” a great song that shows the vocal prowess and range of Lzzy Hale, she can scream like Halford one moment, yet here she turns on the soft and smooth vocals at the beginning. By the end though she cuts loose, letting her rip as the song builds. Truly a goose bump kind of moment.
Lastly comes the real curve ball as Halestorm takes “Get Lucky” from electronic band Daft Punk and transformed it into a ripping high energy heavy metal tune worthy of raising both horns high. Electronic music is generally about as appealing to me as a root canal, but I can appreciate a good tune. Halestorm certainly heard a more powerful version that lends itself surprisingly well to loud guitars and lyrically works perfect as a dirty little rock song. I am shamefully saying it might just be the best cover on the EP, not the best song, but the total transformation has taken some electronic “autotuned” coal and rocked it into a diamond.
