Stitched Up Heart Are Bloody Haute!

Something wicked this way comes...

For the past twelve months, Hollywood's STITCHED UP HEART have terrorized the music scene with an explosive mix of crunchy glitter rock and bloody punk-pop.

The band's taut mix of loud guitars, candy-coated vocal melodies and squealing metal leads beget an infectious wall-of-sound set to detonate the very foundation of Hard Rock.

Hallowed Be Thy Name!

So whose centrifugal pump excretes the flow that commandeers the stitched up cirque du soleil?

It's none other than the ubiquitously striped one, Ms Mixi:

Recently chosen as one of the few, the proud and the hottest; Mixi finds herself among Amy Lee, Taylor Momsen, Lzzy Hale, Heidi Shepherd, Carla Harvey, Emma Anzai, Syd Duran, Simone Simons, Alissa White-Gluz, Alexia & Anissa Rodriguez, Maria Brink, Brooklyn Allman, and Ashley Costello as one of Revolver Magazine's Hottest Chicks in Hard Rock.

But don't let the HCIHR halo fool you, for if looks really do kill, then she fulfills the role nefariously in the murderous mischievousness bequeathed in the video for "Is This The Way To Get To Hell":



The surest way to get to hell is on Highway 66 which is what the quintet did this summer as they stitched up hearts from coast to coast on a 7-week Reinforcement stint with Hollywood sin-kin Gemini Syndrome and Evolove.

As a token of gratitude to the growing army of "stitches," the band exclusively offered a new 6-song Ep entitled ESCAPE THE NIGHTMARE at their shows.

Escape compiles four new songs ("These Scars Will Let Me Breathe" "Dead Walkin'" "Change" "It Comes Back Around") with the previous ready-made arena-rock anthem "We're Alive" and the bloody-drippin' finger-lickin' roaring riff-raff of Is This The Way.

By the way. It is the way...

So, get stitched. Get hitched. And get on board.

Power-packed and Warped tour tested, Escape The Nightmare kicks off with the incessantly catchy "These Scars Will Let Me Breathe" which showcases an intriguing vocal duality in which Mixi easily assimilates the psychological personification of the pouty repentant waif versus the infinitely empowered heroine.

It reminds me of the vocal subtlety that Axl Rose displayed on Appetite For Destruction and how his varied charismas envelope you from contextual psychological vantage points.

Once one begins to Breathe, it's time to put one foot in front of the other to do some emotional sleepwalking, also known as Dead Walkn'.

"You're like the Dead Walkin'. And it creeps under my skin. In your dreams you feel connected. That's why you are infected. Like the Dead Walkin'. How I see your soul within. Grab my hand, I'll take you. Grab my hand."

Yes, even if it's a hand immersed in the slim-fit confines of a skeleton glove...

It's safe and hermetically sound

We're walking. You & I. We're waking.

We're screaming for this moment.

We're alive.

So, now that we've walked a mile in each other's moccasins and blood is adequately flowing to the Stitched Up Heart once again, it's time to take a respite and intimately reflect via a lush languorous ballad entitled "Change".

With it's layered strings and elegantly polished hook, "Change" sounds like it came straight outta Studio A of the Hollywood Hit Factory, the same wizardly outpost that cranks out power chord structures for Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, Cady Groves and all the other artists aligned with the Recording Company of America.

Taylor Swift would commiserate with its distinctly delicate fragility. Ditto for Hayley Williams. I suspect Jon Bon Jovi would appreciate it's sweeping grandiosity.

Nightmare closes with "It Comes Back Around" which comes back around to another hot sticky mess to melt your pop-punk inhibitions. Turn it up. Ingest. The good times are here again.

One other subtle suture that sets Stitched up Heart apart from their contemporaries is meticulously supersonic Paul Gilbert/Randy Rhoads-esque solos by guitarist Mikey Alfero.

For instance, he completely decimates the end of These Scars with a blindingly fast barrage of noodle notes that paint a shit-eatin' grin on my mug every time.

It's this confluence of bold virtuosity and melodious mellifluousness that stand up and shout like a holy diver decreeing the hallowed halls of rock can indeed be bloody haute!

And that a well-appointed Stitched Up Heart...

with a heavy dose of Sugar and Spice and everything thrice,

can indeed help someone to Escape The Nightmare.

STITCHED UP HEART - Escape The Nightmare
1. These Scars Will Let Me Breathe
2. Walkin' Dead
3. We're Alive
4. Change
5. Is This The Way To Get To Hell
6. It Comes Back Around

STITCHED UP HEART
Mixi - Lead Vox
Andrew Carroll - Drums
Charlee Conley - Bass
Mikey Alfero - Guitar

FACEBOOK.COM/STITCHEDUPHEARTROCK