Letters From The Fire - Worth The Pain

2017 debut album from US hard rockers Letters From The Fire. Worth the Pain features 13 songs that offer a beguiling mix of melody and heaviness. "These are our stories our trials and tribulations. This is who we are." That's Mike Keller, the guitarist/founder behind the Bay Area rock powerhouse Letters From the Fire, explaining his band's moniker. Ostensibly lifted from an old lyric, the phrase now serves as both a reminder of the band's sometimes turbulent origin as well as a rallying cry as the group moves forward and (re)introduces themselves to the music world. While Letters From the Fire has existed for a bit, the group only recently solidified a lineup that best represents Keller's original vision (the band is rounded out by Alexa Kabazie, Cameron Stucky, Clayton Wages and Brian Sumwalt). The band found a modicum of early success doing national tours with the likes of Fuel, Trapt, Non Point and Pop Evil, recording with former Evanescence guitarist Ben Moody and scoring a few rock radio hits ("Zombies in the Sun, " a cover of "Eleanor Rigby").But singer changes abounded... until they met Alexa Kabazie. "With Kabazie now helping out on melody and lyrics, the band shifted gears. "She was all over the heavy stuff, " says Keller. "We actually scratched a lot of stuff and wrote around her voice. It's interesting what she brings, because we're not really like In This Moment or Halestorm or anything you're hearing in rock right now." The album was produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by Kile Odell (Motionless in White, Cursed Sails, Killwhitneydead, Vanisher).