Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
If you desire something enough, you will go to the end of the Earth to find it, you will sacrifice almost everything in the pursuit of that dream, you will shatter preconceptions and build walls around you to protect that dream, that vision. Uncomfortably and sadly, often those dreams fade, the relentless chase too strong, too lofty, too high off the ground to reach with both hands and the opinions of others too forceful to stand up to close and perhaps insidiously jealous scrutiny.
It takes a Wild Heart to rise above the scorn and personal doubt, a beating pulse that is fierce, independent to the point where others of less sincerity might believe that they are aloof, and they are welcomingly uncontrollable, the wild running free, the fire from the desire burning as if caught in the engine of a beautifully kept steam train, hot coals of aspiration driving the boiler on and the never ending shovel pushing in more and more effort.
This is the world in which Kashena Sampson has dived into, a full bodied entry into the waters of trepidation and panache, one that is unforgiving in many quarters, but one also that embraces the sincere and the passionate; in Wild Heart that passion is to be seen and heard throughout, the main cause is that heart, the one on her sleeve that beats loudly but one that is not afraid to show it has been hurt, wounded, bleeding where love is always to be.
It is in the much admired feel and consideration of the 1970s classic female vocal to which the album has quite rightly garnered the praise and attention, one in which Kashena Sampson channels with urgency the realm and poise of Stevie Nicks with astonishing results across the entire range of songs; impossible to ignore, a pleasure to hear.
In tracks such as It’s A Long Way Back, Greasy Spoon, Motherless Child, That Don’t Sit Too Well With Me and the instructional and prophetic Never Give Up, Ms. Sampson and the players on the album, Jeremy Fetzer, Jon Estes, Jon Radford, Elizabeth Estes and Erin Rae, bring that heady sound of fire driven independence and feminine beguilement front and centre to the listener and injects a reason of faith, a stroke of genius in the memory.
It takes drive and often belligerent stubbornness to fulfil a dream, but it is nothing without a Wild Heart, a set of songs that deliver exactly that thought.
Ian D. Hall