Kickass Danish rock-and-rollers Volbeat begin to shed some light on their new record, Outlaw Gentlemen and Shady Ladies, and it's sounding pretty awesome!
Before I get the rest of their detailed press release out to you, let's get the big news part of it out right now, since that's likely what you came here to read-
The track "Room 24" features a massive coup for Volbeat with the guest appearance from King Diamond, the legendary front man of Danish metal pioneers Mercyful Fate, and one of Poulsen’s musical idols. He reveals, "I’m a huge fan of Mercyful Fate and King Diamond. Having King on the record is a huge privilege. Normally, it’s not something he does. He wrote his own lines, and it is half my lyrics and half his. It’s a weird, scary story, and he’s the perfect person for it.” Additional guests include Anders Pedersen on slide guitar, Rod Sinclair on banjo and Jakob Øelund on double bass.
So not only do we get a pretty solid guest spot from the man himself, but we're getting half a King Diamond story on the record as well? Color me excited! Given his extensive and successful career, you can simply assume his lyrics and performance are going to be nothing short of awesome. Not to mention that there's something especially haunting about him performing on what sounds like a country-ish song, so we'll see how well that goes. Volbeat says about the rest of the record-
You can hear the influence of the Old West right from the start in "Let’s Shake Some Dust," an evocative intro track that features harmonica from acclaimed blues harp player Paul Lamb. You can hear it again in the rampaging "Black Bart," which Poulsen describes as “our country-Motörhead song,” and in the banjos that pepper the chorus of the hard-as-steel "Doc Holliday," a tribute to the legendary lawman and associate of the Wyatt Earp gang. But is no country & western record. If it was a car, it would be a 1973 Stutz Blackhawk with monster truck wheels – vintage and modern, stylish and muscular.
You can hear echoes of classic 50s rock’n’roll in the soaring "Pearl Hart," and the live classic-in-waiting "Lola Montez." The band’s metal roots come to the fore via the heavy riffage of "Dead But Rising" and "The Nameless One," while the ghostly "The Lonesome Rider" – which finds Michael duetting with Sarah Blackwood of Canadian band Walk Off The Earth like a modern day Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash – beats with a rockabilly heart. Elsewhere, they bring some greased-back energy to "My Body," a cover of the hit song by US pop-punk outfit Young The Giant, while the brooding album closer "Our Loved Ones" is the nearest thing they’ve ever written to a ballad. Poulsen offers, “When I was growing up, my dad and mother played a lot of old records – Elvis, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry. I love that stuff – it’s a drug somehow. My own record collection growing up was metal. But I listen to a lot of different styles of music. If something moves you, I don’t care what it is.”
Outlaw Gentlemen and Shady Ladies is due out April 9th.
