Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The general public in Britain might not be aware of their names now but there should be no doubting that by the end of the year the three women who make the album Girls With Guitars sound so rock and roll, so upbeat Blues, that you’d expect a complaint to be lodged somewhere in Tennessee about unlawful unions, the marriage and the meeting of minds with none of the sometimes maddening sadness that goes hand in hand with such clashes.
For Eliana Cargnelutti, Sadie Johnson and Heather Crosse, Girls With Guitars offers an opportunity, in much the same way that Beth Hart and British superstar Joanne Shaw Taylor in recent times and like so many outstanding female artists before them, to show that yet another pillar in the powerhouse of assertive, uncompromising and full of nuclear assault that is the guile of forceful femininity, is much welcome, art after all is the great leveller.
Girls With Guitars may seem like a title in which 21st Century thinking might frown upon, but in the world of musical brilliance, it’s a title, just a title, for the truth of the deal is what resides inside each sumptuous track. The album title is just a polite introduction, it’s like arriving at an airport and expecting the swirling headiness that awaits to be a reflection of the nothing to declare aisle. If it’s time to get deep down and messy, if it’s the hour in which to throw your lot in with a group of very talented women, then Eliana Cargnelutti, Sadie Johnson and Heather Crosse are the women in which to offer a guitar pick to in the hope of seeing a smile as they play your favourite track.
With the rush of excitement coming from the opener Girl Band, the tight agonising, crushing beauty of This House Just Ain’t My Home, the very cool cover of the Desmond Child song, I Hate Myself For Loving You, the vixen like sensuality of She May Have You, But I Got Yo Heart and the impacting finale of Wish You Hadn’t Gone will make any listener wish that the album wouldn’t finish.
A terrific and enjoyable album, full of female allure, great creativity and the foresight of what is to come from all three, whether individually or together, the prospect is mouth watering.
Ian D. Hall