Band:	Halestorm
Album:	Into The Wild Life
Style:	Hard rock
Release date:	April 2015

01. Scream
02. I Am The Fire
03. Sick Individual
04. Amen
05. Dear Daughter
06. New Modern Love
07. Mayhem
08. Bad Girls World
09. Gonna Get Mine
10. The Reckoning
11. Apocalyptic
12. What Sober Couldn't Say
13. I Like It Heavy
14. Jump The Gun [bonus]
15. Unapologetic [bonus]

Hard rock is a genre that's a bit on the stale side, to put it mildly, for keeping up with it. I get bored faster than I actually like to admit. I mean, I'm game for some rocking out but there's too little traction for even a casual listen most of the time. However, there's this. I may sound like a broken record on repeat here but if you've missed me saying it before, I'm totally in for female vocals with character; and Halestorm is exactly that, more so when going flat out.

There's no way I can describe this album in ways that haven't been mentioned in one way or another about many other albums around. It's hard rock, and when it rocks, it's good. Mind you, though, that statement is important. To pull a quote from "I Like it Heavy" on this very album: "I need the volume one louder than ten / I put the pedal to the metal, needle into the red..." See, that about describes the essence of why we go for these songs at all. So why, oh why do you err against what you preach?

Music-wise this album just breaks on ballads. Any listener of hard rock knows to appreciate a good ballad as a breather as well as a statement on its own. But it's got to be in the right place and you don't overuse it. This time around, Halestorm flopped it. You've got to watch for the flow of the album. Approaching the middle section, that is starting from the fifth track, "Dear Daughter," what you get is one proper rocking tune sandwiched in between ballads. It feels like putting pedal to the metal till you hit the speed limit of 50. It's a ridiculous concept if there ever was one.

While I think there's more to this band than just Lzzy Hale, I have to admit that she is probably the single factor that keeps this band and particularly this album afloat and interesting for me. She's got pretty good chords for the job. Want a ballad? Easy. Want to rock out at the top of your lungs? Easy, and admittedly far more captivating, as that's where her voice acquires some characteristic grit and rasp. That's what I really want to hear - a strain of effort put into driving songs, not just easygoing ballads most of the time.

This is a good album when viewed from certain angles. I like the balance of the instruments on it, for example. That I love the vocals, goes without saying. And I do like the songs. I mean, regardless of the type, by themselves the songs are interesting with a couple of twists and turns here and there for additional benefit. It's just that this album feels like a collection of random (but decent to good) tracks just thrown together. It would have benefited a lot from better filtering and reordering. The way the songs are ordered now, this album is nothing but a rocking prick tease.