Artists such as Mat Sinner, who’s kept his band on target for more than 35 years, releasing well over a dozen studio albums (plus a number of live recordings and compilations), have got to be doing a lot of things right. The success of the German heavy metal act is based, last but not least, on its boss’s talent for unwaveringly sticking to his chosen course while never losing his passion for new challenges. Sinner is happy to accept the fact that such feats frequently necessitate a bit of a gamble, after all: “Evolvement entails a certain element of risk, and without evolvement we’d soon reach a point where we’d fail to live up to our own standards.” Sinner have certainly succeeded in living up to their own standards on their new album, Santa Muerte, scheduled for release on AFM/Soulfood on 13 September 2019. And definitely to those of their fans.

But let’s begin with the most obvious innovation: Santa Muerte features a permanent second voice, alongside frontman Mat, for the first time. This voice is female, hails from Venice and answers to the name of Giorgia Colleluori. Mat: “I’d first noticed Georgia in her own band, Eternal Idol, that’s why we enlisted her as a  background vocalist for ‘Rock meets Classic’. During that tour it transpired that Georgia would fit in really well with Sinner. So we asked her to join us on stage for three classics during a number of shows in Australia, Japan and Germany. The audience’s reactions were awesome, so we decided to ask her to join the band on a permanent basis.” Colleluori’s vocal range has lent a whole new dimension to Sinner’s current songs in particular – according to Mat – “a dimension that I wouldn’t have been able to achieve by myself.”

The second innovation: in Ricky Warwick (Thin Lizzy, Black Star Riders) and Ronnie Romero (Ritchie Blackmore´s Rainbow), Santa Muerte features two of the currently most charismatic vocalists of the international rock scene as guests. “I met Ricky in connection with Rock meets Classic, too,” explains Mat. “We frequently sat on the tour bus together, talked for hours and have become real friends. Ricky is very similar to me, down to earth, honest, a little rough.” Warwick’s unique voice can be heard on ‘What Went Wrong’, a straightforward rock number with an Irish-inspired Thin Lizzy flair. Ronnie Romero on the other hand, whose voice features on ‘Fiesta Y Copas’, came to Sinner’s attention in 2015 for the first time at a major festival in Italy, where Mat’s power metal act Primal Fear and Romero’s Spanish band Lords Of Black played on the same stage. Other guests on Santa Muerte are Swedish guitarist/co-songwriter Magnus Karlsson (Primal Fear, Allen/Lande) on ‘Death Letter’ and background vocalist Sascha Krebs, who already contributed fantastic choir parts to (almost) all songs on Sinner’s previous release Tequila.

hardmanpr / afmrecords