Here’s Johnny! Not quite, but Ottawa, Canada’s Rockin’ Engine pays tribute to the classic film with their latest single “Room 185” featuring guest vocals from Stef Jomphe (Insurrection) off their upcoming third studio recording Altered By Evil. Besides playing high-energy rock complemented with screaming guitar solos, the quartet is also all horror fanatics and it was only a matter of time before they started writing a horror concept EP. While trying not to replicate what’s already out there, vocalist Steve O Leff started writing lyrics inspired by certain details in his favourite movies. 

He comments on how this single came to be:

“Jack Torrance, the character played by Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, has to be my favourite horror movie character of all time. That performance is what made me addicted to horror movies. I wanted to write a song about this movie as an homage to this masterpiece. When we started to work together on this song, we soon realized that this would be our heaviest composition to date, and we needed someone to help us express this emotion in order to be satisfied with our work. After doing some research, we approached Insurrection’s lead vocalist Stef Jomphe in an attempt to have his voice on the track, just to make it that much better! We were absolutely honoured and excited when he accepted the project and headed straight to the studio. This song hits you in a way that you have no choice but to headbang!”

Leff says that he always does a lot of research before writing to get the stories straight, and he was quite surprised with the depth of knowledge and historical facts that are put into these inspiring motion pictures. At some point, their musical composition is inspired by the lyrics, and the lyrics are inspired by the music. For them, it’s a really fun writing process and it’s a recipe they intend to use for future musical projects.

Heavy, punchy, and charismatic, Altered By Evil is by far their best work yet, and look forward to raising Hell wherever they set foot. If Gojira, Lamb Of God, and Rob Zombie made a baby, Rockin’ Engine would be their bastard son. Their fusion of hard rock and thrash metal will set fire to any stage and leave everyone with a bad case of whiplash.

Watch and listen to lyric video for “Room 185” featuring guest vocals from Stef Jomphe (Insurrection).

Preorder Altered By Evil on Bandcamp.

Tracklisting:

“Carnival Of Evil”
“Day Of Wrath”
“Liber Ex-Mortis”
“Monsters Under Your Bed”
“Psycho Path”
“Room 185” feat Steph Jomphe (Insurrection)

“Room 185” lyric video:

“Monsters Under Your Bed”: