POWERRAGE - Beast LP RED (Pre-Order)

01 Dark Wings
02 Cremation Damnation
03 Dragon Man
04 Haunted Hell
05 I Torture I Kill
06 The Devil is Screaming
07 Damned and Cursed
08 The Black Mass

Jacques Belanger - vocals
John Ricci - guitars
Todd Pilon - bass
Lucas Dery - drums

“I am really excited about 2026,” says John Ricci. And the legendary guitar player has every right to be excited. While the metal public did not hear very much from him after the live work with the original Exciter line-up between 2014 and 2018, Ricci is now back with his own band.
Besides him, Powerrage consists of bassist Todd Pilon (formerly of Witchkiller), drummer Lucas Dery and last but not least vocalist Jacques Bélanger, who previously sang on three Exciter albums: »The Dark Command« (1997), »Blood Of Tyrants« (2000) and »New Testament« (2004). »Beast« is the name of the debut album by Powerrage, due to be released via High Roller Records.
While with John Ricci and Jacques Bélanger there are two former Exciter members in Powerrage, John likes make one thing perfectly clear: “Well, with this band I didn’t want to be another Exciter. It was time to move on. Even though Exciter was based around my guitar style, and it was a successful formula, I wanted to start from scratch and start all over again. Starting over and not depending on your past accomplishments is definitely a very difficult task but I feel confident enough I can make it happen.”
It’s hard to pin down but listening to the eight songs on »Beast«, you will get a large dose of very heavy, early doom/death metal, as well as some classic Exciter and also a lot of early Mercyful Fate. Does this description make any sense at all? “Yes, I agree with you about the comparisons you mentioned,” concurs the legendary axeman. “Doom influence yes, Exciter classic riffing yes, but Mercyful Fate influence? I would say that was not intentional. It was just the way I visioned the vocals; it was a coincidence.”
“When it was time to record the album, we decided to do it the same way as the preceding two-song demo,” continues Ricci, “live off the floor in our rehearsal studio. My longtime friend/producer Manfred Leidecker and engineer George Henderson set up a mobile studio and recorded the music, but the vocals were recorded in Manfred’s studio (under a more controlled environment). The album was mixed and mastered by Dan Swano at Unisound. I wrote everything on »Beast«: music, lyrics, melodies. Powerrage is 100 % my musical vision. All eight songs are brand-new, no rehashed riffs from my Exciter days.”
Listening to extremely heavy numbers like “Dark Wings”, “Haunted Hell” or the almost punkish “I Torture I Kill”, Powerrage (the band name goes back to the seventies) might indeed be a fresh start for the one and only John Ricci.