An Interview with Everlore

An absolutely massive new record from Everlore delivers a blend of melodic metal styles and approaches with a thick and theatrical sort of approach that has a way of telling stories while delivering these intense soundscapes.

The Hope and Turmoil album kicks things off with a track called "Warrior Hearts", which wastes very little time in delivering some of the crushing and brutal riffs and guitar tones that you're going to hear throughout the rest of the record.

You also get a glimpse of not just the storytelling, but the power behind the vocal delivery, also. This whole thing isn't just kind of theatrical; it's like arena rock, but it blends in a much heavier edge than normal.

This is an amazing track to introduce the record with because it does showcase some of the great staples you will hear throughout the album's course, but you still should be listening to this thing from start to finish.

This album is an escape, or almost like a concept record, where the stories are told in depth, songs interconnect with each other in different ways, and it pulls you away from wherever you are and whatever you're doing; it puts you in this entirely different world for a chunk of time.

Listening to a few tracks may give you that idea or just of what you might expect, but it does not give you the spectrum of what the full album offers.

Tracks like "Adventure Metal" serve as a fun surprise that gives you that classic sort of Iron Maiden horse trot-style rhythm with amazing guitar work and drumming that just pushes the boundaries.

This is a record that has a lot of attention to detail in terms of both the music and the lyrical approach.

When you're through with this album, you feel like you just watched a movie or a play. Or even read a good book.

It is an amazing escape, and the crossover metal styles that you hear throughout the record are a beautiful thing, especially if you love good metal bands.

The record thrashes with some speed metal, loads of melodies and hooks that stick in your head for hours or even days after the songs have ended, and immense, sonically driving choruses that are robust and intense to say the very least.

This whole record has more than a few amazing, standalone-style singles, but the record should be heard as a whole, once again.

This is an album that serves as a testament to great metal bands that really put a lot of heart and attention, time, and energy into what they're doing.

Everlore is a band that has a true love for their craft, and when I say that, I don't just mean playing their instruments or singing; I mean writing songs together that have depth and impact.

This is an album with plenty of surprises around its corners, tracks like "What Once Was", which features some amazing, almost Spanish classical sounding guitar work.

You can hear a slew of heavy influences throughout this record, and these songs are like an ode to those bands.

If I've ever heard a metal record that serves as a love letter to the genre itself, this is it.

Being able to blend classic, vintage metal approaches and bring them into a new platform, making things feel more current, intense, and gigantic, is what this record is all about, and they do it with what feels like such ease.

This was a massive record, and there's something for every kind of metal fan in there, but people who grew up listening to great metal bands are going to absolutely fall in love with this record from start to finish.

I suggest checking this whole thing out, nice and loud or even with headphones on, so you can soak in all of these great layers that are going on throughout the songs.

With the release of such a killer album, we had to have a chat with the band to find out where this all came from and what might be coming up next for them.

Here's what went down.

Buzz Slayers: Let's talk about Hope and Turmoil! This record boasted some amazing guitar wot and powerful metal approaches all over it!  Where did this

album come from?

- It's a mixture of many things. This is our second album overall, but the first with Arto on vocals, and that alone makes a huge difference. Part of it is also just natural progression — we've grown more confident as songwriters and improved as players since the first album, so everything became bigger and more ambitious. There's also more experimentation this time. I still really like the first album, but looking back, it does feel a bit more conventional and kind of safe in comparison. I think the overall feel of this album exudes some anger and frustration due to the endless delays and low points we went through

during the whole process. Mind you, the drums were recorded as far back

as 2021, so a lot of shit happened between then and now - including our previous singer Joonas leaving the group.

Buzz Slayers: I'm hearing a few different styles to this record! Who are some of your biggest musical influences?

- Our main influences are Iron Maiden, Stratovarius, Running Wild, and

Johann Sebastian Bach.

Buzz Slayers: Do you write songs together as a band, or do you have one or two main songwriters that bring ideas back to the rest?

- We have three principal songwriters: myself, Samu, and Ville. One of the band's biggest strengths is that we share a clear vision of what we should - and shouldn't - sound like, and then filter that vision through three different creative perspectives. The songs are usually in a fairly finished state when they are presented to the rest of the band, but there's always room for tweaking. We've never actually written a song together, but it's never off the table.

Buzz Slayers: How did this all start for you as a band?

- It's a long story with twists and turns, but here's the condensed lore: Petteri and I go way back. We've known each other since seventh grade, I think. We started jamming around 2005 when we were in high school in the small town of Saarijärvi, Finland. We'd play stuff by Iron Maiden, Gamma Ray, Helloween, Manowar, Megadeth, and so on. Things went quiet around 2008 when we graduated and sort of drifted apart for a while, but what I'd call the real beginning of Everlore came years later, in 2013, when we started playing together again — this time in Jyväskylä, where we're still based. Our longtime friend Lauri Huttunen joined us on guitar, and Ville came in on bass later that year. By then, we'd already written a few early Everlore songs. After a brief stint with a temporary singer, the first serious lineup came together in 2014 with Joonas Kunnela on vocals. Lauri left in 2015 and Samu joined. This current lineup, with Arto on vocals, was formed in 2022.

Buzz Slayers: Are you performing live right now? Any touring in support of the

release?

- We did a small tour in Finland this spring following the album's release, and we've got a few more shows booked for this autumn and winter.

Buzz Slayers: Now that this is out, what's next for you?

- We're slowly starting to rehearse songs for our third album, and we might even play one of the new tracks at our winter shows this year as a small teaser of what's to come!

Buzz Slayers: Who's in your headphones right now?

- Juuso: Recently I've been listening to a lot of Black Sabbath for obvious reasons. I think we all have.

- Arto: Iron Maiden and Guns N' Roses.

- Petteri: I've been listening to Havukruunu a lot.

- Samu: Checks phone My recent listens have been Günther and Cumbeast (the rest of the band looks slightly worried).

- Ville: I haven't really listened to anything but podcasts for a while.

Buzz Slayers: What would you tell people they can expect on this release?

- It's power metal the way it should be played! We are proudly out of fashion.

Buzz Slayers: Before we go, what would you like to express to fans of the music?

- Thank you for all the support! We'll keep going 'til we drop dead. I hope you do, too.

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