EP Review: HALESTORM - Reimagined

01. I Get Off
02. Miss The Misery
03. I Am The Fire
04. Break In (featuring Amy Lee)
05. I Will Always Love You (Dolly Parton cover)
06. Mz. Hyde

 

It's been a couple of years since their last studio album, Vicious (read my review here), and we've been treated to a new 'stop-gap' EP that I didn't know existed until a couple of days before its release last week. Fans have gotten used to covers EPs being released between albums (read my review of their last one, Reanimate 3.0. here), but this time Halestorm have opted for something a little different.

It'll come as no surprise that Reimagined is an EP of reimagined versions of familiar songs. It does what it says on the tin. The exception is the cover of Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You. It's an odd choice of cover that serves only to remind everyone of how powerful and soulful Lzzy's voice is. As if we didn't know this already! I was hoping it'd be a Rock version, or perhaps something closer to Dolly's original, but no. It closely follows the version Whitney Houston did for the movie The Bodyguard, which is one of those overplayed, over the top tracks that got on my tits throughout the nineties. Despite Lzzy's version being technically amazing, it's not something I ever want to listen to again.

The five Halestorm tracks are all great songs to start with, so there isn't much that can go wrong. These new versions are mostly acoustic, more laid-back versions. They remind me of when MTV did several legendary unplugged sessions back in the day, with full bands as opposed to just one or two acoustic guitars and vocals. It makes for a more interesting and dynamic listen.

From these five tracks, I Am The Fire and Break In, the latter featuring Amy Lee from Evanescence, are the stand-outs for me. Sometimes a little inexplicable magic happens with stripped down versions, giving the songs something special, and that's certainly the case with those two. In fairness, the others are pretty damn good too.

Reimagined is an interesting release. None of these new versions surpass the originals, but they're great in their own right. I do hope that we haven't seen the last of the covers EP's though.