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HOLY ROLLERS

Priestess. Now there�s a heavy name.

You�ve got an image in your head, and it�s mistaken. You�ve heard the name Priestess, and you�re juggling impressions. Are they Goths, prancing around the pentangle in their Lugosi capes? I think not. Could this be�Christian rock? God, no. Just another gang of suburban riff-clowns raised on a sallow junk-food diet of hair bands? None of the above. Cue up the Montreal band�s debut, Hello Master, and let us demystify. Metal? No �Priestess is Heavy Mettle� And they do inspire devotion.

�It feels like we hit it off with people who wanna hear a heavy rock group with catchy songs,� says singer/guitarist Mikey Heppner. And, hello �master of understatement. Heppner�s a bantam dynamo whose unaffected approach is the face of a like-minded band. No stylist, no shtick, no pose � without gimmick, they fire maddeningly memorable and crunching hooks out to an audience that travels under no banner.

�Ordinary kids,� says Heppner. That sliver of rock fans somewhere between the hard rock, garage and indie tribes - you know, that 70% sliver. Priestess finds a commonality between those nerds, jocks, stoners, loners, party kids and hipsters for whom rock n�roll is somewhere between soundtrack and salvation.

Formed in Montreal in 2003 with a desire to rewire a balls-out �70s rock ethic with classicist songwriting, they defiantly refused to equate heavy music with the Big Downer. �Some bands are gloomy � because that�s the only way to be cool.�

Here�s the other way: rejoicing in heaviosity, with the accent on both ends. In their time as rock n�roll redeemers, Priestess has run through everything from the Beatles to prog to punk to Nirvana and back to AC/DC. �One of the hardest things to do is take a major-chord chorus and make it cool and heavy,� Heppner says. �AC/DC�s You Shook Me All Night Long is in a major-chord - super-happy key. But it�s unstoppable and I can listen to it every day�forever.�

In the lean and punishing I Am the Night, Color Me Black, in the canyon-sized Talk To Her, the snarling Lay Down and an instant classic called Two Kids, they have already written four chapters in their own new testament.

�There is a level that we� must get to,� Heppner says of the band�s live show. Anyone who�s heard Heppner�s opening shout �We are Priestess and we are going to fuck you!� knows what that means. It�s no surprise that they caught the attention of Motorhead, opening for them on their last tour �Lemmy practically wrote the book on fucking the crowd up. Then, three triumphant shows at SXSW �06 capped a �crushingly great� 6 1/2 week tour with fellow crushers Early Man and The Sword that found the band breaking out of major markets into places like Buffalo � where ordinary kids who couldn�t care less about the Montreal resurgence were moved to seize Heppner from the stage and send him crowd-surfing, mid-solo. They were believers.�

So back to that name: �The minute we tossed it out there, we knew it was perfect.�

Why? Think about it. Rather than playing to a herd of headbangers hurling themselves at the stage while their girlfriends cower at tables in the dark corners, Priestess wants to cross the most elemental human divide: gender. �Zeppelin sort of had a mystical pagan allure in the context of heavy, distorted guitars,� Heppner says. He finds in that a balance of undeniable masculine heft and feminine melody. �We get a lot of girls in the crowd. That�s very important.�

It�s more than a manifesto. It�s a creed--- They are Priestess. The cult starts here.