Long time heavy-metal icon and vocalist, Dee Snider, has announced that his fifth studio album, Leave a Scar, will be released on July 30 via Napalm Records. Three years after his last release, Snider is ready to get back on the scene, and the lyrics in the new single say it all: Here I go / It’s time to roll again!
Videos by American Songwriter
The album, produced by Jamey Jasta with co-production and mixing/mastering by drummer Nick Bellmore, stays in the same vein as his previous album, For The Love Of Metal, one which classic heavy metal fans will flock to.
In anticipation of the new album, Snider released his first new single titled “I Gotta Rock (Again)” alongside a new music video. In the new track, Snider discusses his lifelong dedication to the heavy metal industry and lifestyle. It’s time to rock again / When you’re a lifer you’re rocking til the end / Always screaming my life is on the stage / Rock!, Snider howls.
The video kicks off with a man chained up in front of a TV that displays Snider performing in a cage-like room. Eventually the chained man breaks free and smashes the TV with an axe. By the end of the video, Snider’s back on stage with a crowd of thousands cheering him on. One can assume the video represents not only the return of Snider himself, but also of society as the pandemic slowly tapers to the end after being in lockdown.
Snider says of his new single, “‘I Gotta Rock (Again)’ is the starting gun for this album and the driving motivation behind me returning to the studio to record Leave a Scar. At the end of 2019, I had felt my recording and live performing was over, but I didn’t announce it to the world. I mentally had decided I was done. But the state of things in 2020 had other plans for me. Between COVID and the political state around the globe, I found myself yearning (yes, I yearn) to get back in the studio.”
The new album serves as a cathartic release for Snider, encapsulating the anger and frustration he and the world experienced during the past year. The twelve tracks on the album are filled with angst and power, reminding the world that Snider is still in his prime.
“By the end of 2020, I knew I not only had to get back into the studio,” Snider says, “but for the first time since the ’90s, I wanted —no, needed —to be a part of the writing process…This is my purpose.”
You can preorder Leave A Scar here.
