“Fireball, the whisky… I’ll take a shot or two before we play.” Piper Ferrari, singer for Las Vegas hardcore howlers Roman Candle, has an unconventional warm-up routine. “Any other liquor, my throat would be fucked up. But Fireball is thick like cough syrup. I swear by it!”
It’s clearly doing the trick, because the snarls Piper unleashes in Roman Candle are as harrowing as it gets. Piper formed the group with guitarist Jonas Vece in 2022, after the pair’s “shitty bedroom band” fell apart. That same year they dropped Discount Fireworks, their debut EP coated in erratic drum strikes and ferocious screamo.
“There wasn’t always a vision,” Piper admits. “We just wanted to keep making music together, writing music we liked listening to – late 90s/early 2000s hardcore, metalcore, pop… the stuff we grew up on.”
Word quickly got out about their killer, retro-tinged sound. But rather than rushing an album out, they spent time perfecting their style, adding other flavours including nu metal and even symphonic metal, all of which pop up on their freshly released debut, Unadulterated.
“Jonas owns a studio outside Vegas, which is both good and bad,” Piper muses. “It took us a few years to write an album, because we were being so particular and crazy about it.”
It was clearly worth the effort. As easy as it is to point to their obliterating blastbeats and hellish vocals, there are also some surprising left-turns on Unadulterated. Take opener Blasphemous Act, which uses cinematic cello strings played by Piper herself.
“My favourite band growing up was Evanescence. They’re all about that [symphonic stuff],” she muses. “They’ve got the strings, the orchestra, the opera. I think those elements are very medieval, very gothic and so is a lot of heavy music. I love that bands are bringing that [classical influence] back.”
Unadulterated is out now via Sumerian.
SOUNDS LIKE: Feral female rage with monstrous hooks
FOR FANS OF: Casey, Dying Wish, Touché Amoré