Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
You can ask for many things in life, world peace, the end to hunger, humanity living side by side in genuine respect…the list is endless and in all honesty hardly likely to happen. You can though, and surely must always be allowed the privilege of hearing a Beth Hart album at some point during the busy weeks ahead. This is a pre-requisite for getting through Time, the chance to listen to a genuine female legend of 21st Century Blues Rock at her prolific best. This prolific, demanding the clearest mind’s attention nature is captured in true style with her latest release, Better Than Home.
If home is said to be where the heart lies, then what is better than home? For many home is the pinnacle of existence, it is where life and love start and end, it is the light where others try their damndest to distract you from being and it is where, no matter what ills you may cause, what moments of unthinking may be uttered, it is the place where they love you most. Where is better than home, perhaps only in the imagination, where to be able to envisage a performer in the quality of Beth Hart doing what she does best, the sound of a guitar warming up the audience and the outburst of passion as Ms. Hart sings is to be taken as true respect for one at the top of her game.
Following on from the superb Bang, Bang, Bang and the collaboration with Joe Bonamassa on the electrifying album Seesaw, Ms. Hart takes the listener on yet another journey, perhaps more personal, incredibly dynamic but also with the hint of nostalgia and versatile melancholy trip that perhaps could have been thought of.
The beating heart of a Blues player entwined with the passionate display that devastatingly good Rock provides lives and breathes in women such as Beth Hart. The robes of office worn with solemnity but with the graceful hint of a women who is confident in her outstanding ability to turn a few thousand heads in one go , all emotions are captured as Better Than Home kicks in.
Tracks such as Tell Her You Belong To Me, St. Teresa, the journalistic feel of a woman despairing at the challenges and prospects unfulfilled in We’re Still Living in the City, the symbolic appeal of Might As Well Smile and the album’s enchanting title song Better Than Home play in the mind and in the heart. They bruise themselves in the rush to enthral and the listener is careful enough to understand, that despite the physical nature of the songs, despite the hard image won and respected by all, Bet Hart is a woman who kicks down doors for others to follow but also deserves the respect that such actions take out on those willing to be the battering ram in the fight for commitment to the cause.
Where is Better Than Home? Only Beth Hart can truly answer than one, for the listener will no doubt say between the electrical grooves provided by this stunning album.
Beth Hart performs at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on Sunday May 3rd 2015.
Ian D. Hall