Nita Strauss has announced her upcoming solo studio album, The Call of The Void, for which she’s recruited a handful of special six-string guests.
Joining Strauss for her first solo outing since 2018’s Controlled Chaos will be former Megadeth electric guitar star Marty Friedman, as well as hard rock guitar hero Lzzy Hale, and her longtime collaborator Alice Cooper, whose band she recently rejoined after temporarily departing to join Demi Lovato’s new rock outfit.
The Call of The Void will arrive in physical and digital formats, with the former featuring 14 songs. The latter, meanwhile, will up that count to 22, courtesy of eight additional instrumental tracks.
To accompany the news, Strauss has shared the LP’s latest single, The Golden Trail, which features In Flames’ Anders Fridén. It’s a clinic of rhythmic mastery first and foremost, with Strauss flexing her potent picking powers for a stream of bruising riffs that mingle with some face-melting lead licks.
“When I was first learning how to play guitar, In Flames were my Beatles; my first favorite band,” Strauss said of The Golden Trail. “Anders' iconic vocal style is burned into my mind.
“To write a song like this and have him sing on it, as a kid who grew up with In Flames posters on my walls, is an absolute dream come true.”
Of his contributions, Fridén commented, “It was a lot of fun to collaborate with Nita on The Golden Trail. She's an amazing guitar player and I can hear the history of metal flowing through her fingers.”
The Golden Trail joins a slew of previously released singles, with The Call of The Void set to collate Strauss’s standalone efforts from the past two years. The Cooper-featuring Winner Takes All, the solo shred-a-thon Summer Storm and Dead Inside – which features David Draiman – will make the cut, as will The Wolf You Feed.
The Call of The Void arrives after an eventful 2022 for Strauss, who departed Alice Cooper’s band to link-up with pop superstar Demi Lovato, who in turn called upon the Ibanez signature artist to help launch their rock renaissance.
That Lovato tour – which came straight after a Cooper tour – was followed by a return to Cooper’s cohort for Strauss. As a result of all these commitments, it comes as no surprise that this particular album proved to be particularly difficult to piece together.
“Some pieces of music come into the world gracefully and easily. This album is not one of them,” Strauss admitted. “The Call Of The Void was born kicking and screaming, a labor of love for sure, but also of blood, sweat, and plenty of tears.
“I couldn't be more proud of the end result. Making this album helped me learn and grow so much as a musician and songwriter and I’m excited to finally unleash it on the world.
"I wanted the follow up to Controlled Chaos to be exciting, new, and fresh, to take listeners to a new place and take myself somewhere new as an artist, too. We have some amazing collaborations on this album with incredible musicians, as well as the instrumental guitar music that first inspired me to play.”
The track list for the physical edition of the LP can be found below.
- Summer Storm
- The Wolf You Feed (Feat. Alissa White-Gluz)
- Digital Bullets (Feat. Chris Motionless)
- Through the Noise (Feat. Lzzy Hale)
- Consume The Fire
- Dead Inside (Feat. David Draiman)
- Victorious (Feat. Dorothy)
- Scorched
- Momentum
- The Golden Trail (Feat. Anders Fridén)
- Winner Takes All (Feat. Alice Cooper)
- Monster (Feat. Lilith Czar)
- Kintsugi
- Surfacing (Feat. Marty Friedman)
The eight instrumental tracks that will be found on digital editions of The Call of The Void are as follows.
- The Wolf You Feed (Instrumental)
- Digital Bullets (Instrumental)
- Through the Noise (Instrumental)
- Dead Inside (Instrumental)
- Victorious (Instrumental)
- The Golden Trail (Instrumental)
- Winner Takes All (Instrumental)
- Monster (Instrumental)
- The Call of The Void is available to preorder now via Sumerian Records ahead of its release on July 7.
