In a continuing interview with Ultimate Guitar's David Slavković, Raven frontman John Gallagher offered his thoughts on the current state of the guitar-driven music scene. An excerpt is available below.

UG: As someone who's now a veteran metal musician, what's your view on today's metal scene? Are there any bands that you like?

Gallagher: "It's tough not to be cynical. A lot of the bands I hear, it's either all been done before... It's like, I don't know, so many bands think they're doing stuff and you listen and - 'Yeah, well Slayer did this, like, 30 years ago. And they did it better.' So you're not bringing anything to the table other than worse vocals and noisier drums. Of course, 90% of the drums you hear, it's all fake. Most of these guys can't play like that. It's all just, 'Flip, flip, flip, flip,' and, 'Don't worry, we'll just move it in ProTools and make it sounds perfect.' So that's annoying. And the whole, 'Let's tune down as low as possible,' and the cookie monster vocals –-it's not my thing. I could be a little more vocal about how much I hate it, but it's just not my thing. I prefer to hear music. If it's the singer, I want the guy to sing. And if it's a guitar part, I want to hear a melody. There's nothing wrong with having crazy evil riffs, but put some melody in there somewhere. Because if you don't have melody, then it basically turns into rap music. And I'm not a fan of that either."

Read the complete interview here.

When Raven left the Skråen stage at the end of November 2017 after their acclaimed concert in Aalborg, Denmark, brothers John (bass, vocals) and Mark Gallagher (guitar) along with new member Mike Heller (drums) didn't foresee their show being recorded for posterity.

"We were surprised of course, since nobody had informed us of this beforehand," John Gallagher explains. "We had a flash drive with the recording delivered to us and when we checked it, we realized that - barring some small technical problems - we had a truly magical live recording on our hands. It was a near perfect concert thanks to the great atmosphere inside the hall and our out of control attitude - since, you know, we weren't aware the show was being recorded."

It's the unbridled show of a band who has been writing metal history for the last 45 years.

As to the differences between the current Screaming Murder Death From Above: Live In Aalborg and earlier Raven live recordings? "We have of course gotten better and better on a technical level over the years. Also, on Destroy All Monsters/Live in Japan (1996), you can clearly hear that I was wrestling with voice issues due to a bout of laryngitis. And if you compare Screaming Murder Death From Above: Live In Aalborg with Live In The Inferno from 1984, it almost seems as if we had taken sedatives back then", Gallagher says laughingly and concludes with: "The Aalborg recording matches the energy which Raven is exuding 100 percent. It's the best representation of us as a live band yet."

"Screaming Murder Death From Above: Live In Aalborg will be released through SPV/Steamhammer on January 18th as CD DigiPak, 2LP Gatefold, download and stream. Check out the live single / video for the song "Hung, Drawn & Quartered", released today (January 4th), below.

Tracklisting:

"Destroy All Monsters"
"Hell Patrol"
"All For One"
"Hung Drawn And Quartered"
"Rock Until You Drop"
"A.A.N.S.M.M.G.N."
"Tank Treads (The Blood Runs Red)"
"Faster Than The Speed Of Light"
"On And On"
"Break The Chain"
"Crash Bang Wallop"