Storm

Photographer: Gus Black.Five years separate The Storm from ZZ Ward's 2012 debut Til the Casket Drops, but the modern blues-rocker wasn't idle during that half-decade. She toured extensively, opening for legends and appearing in the middle of the bill on festivals, but more importantly, she never strayed far from the studio, attempting to cut new material as early as 2015. An EP called Love and War materialized that year, intended as a teaser for a 2016 record called This Means War that never happened. Instead, she returned to the studio and came up with The Storm, a record that nimbly walks the line dividing modern and retro rock-soul. As a singer, she's firmly grounded in tradition, a big, powerful belter in the vein of Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin. She also has a fondness for traditional song structures, whether it's a 12-bar rave ("Let It Burn") or classic soul ("Hold On"), but The Storm never feels like it's a throwback, thanks to Ward's insistence on camouflaging her fascinati