Shiraz Lane

Finnish rock outfit Shiraz Lane channeled the sleazy swagger and raucous headbanging of vintage Los Angeles hard rock while nodding to the grittier grunge echoes of the 1990s, particularly Alice in Chains. Vocalist Hannes Kett and drummer Ana Willman launched the band in Vantaa during 2011, soon recruiting guitarists Miki Kalske and Jani Laine along with bassist Joel Alex. The quartet’s aggressive riffs and expansive vocal lines evoked the swagger of 1980s hair-metal acts such as Skid Row and Guns N’ Roses. Victory at Helsinki’s Hard Rock Rising contest in 2014 earned them a debut international booking at Toronto’s Hard Rock Cafe, marking their initial venture beyond the United States. Momentum from that exposure prompted the late-2014 release of their first single, “Out There Somewhere” backed with “Money Talks,” both of which later surfaced on the five-track EP Be the Slave or Be the Change that arrived in spring 2015. After inking a deal with Frontier Records, the group entered the studio with producer Ben Varon to cut their debut full-length, For Crying Out Loud, which surfaced in April 2016 fronted by the single “House of Cards.”