Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
The compliment of being compared to others who have strode the same path as you is hard to shake off, even more so when they are considered luminaries of the art you yourself are aiming to emulate, to place your name within, even perhaps ensure that you maintain its pulse. The compliment is always to be taken with gratitude, with the feeling of honour, and yet there will always be apert of the performer that wants to Cry Out, to shout to the world, judge me for who I am and what I may achieve.
Comparisons are not always helpful, no doubt they serve a purpose in highlighting a particular artist to what has gone before, a connection perhaps into which to bring the half-hearted attention of some to more than just the fore, but each person has surely the right to their own value, to make their own lives a statement, and not a footnote of someone else’s story.
Cry Out, as long as it is sincere, as long as the pulse races and the love of what you have created shines forth, then the cry is more of a call to arms, a warrior’s demand to be recognised, and in the voice and heart of Kat Riggins, that cry is hard driven, strong, the personification of a voice that keeps the Blues alive, and alongside others who saw the genre dying on its feet during its darkest hours before the turn of the century, she encapsulates all that’s fine, all that is great about the music on offer.
An album must wear many faces, any art that refuses to accept that it must allow itself to blend like a chameleon, to say goodbye to its integrity. For Kat Riggins the intense nature of the framing of her songs is integrity enough, for in love, in deep thought, in passion and in taking on the ulcers of society in fear, oppression and evils, songs such as Meet Your Maker, Wicked Tongue, Can You See Me Now, On Its Way, the superb elegance of fury and love in the album’s title track, Cry Out and the finale of the album, The Storm, Kat Riggins leaves a lasting impression that does everything right, and leaves the listener upbeat, fully focused and wiling to damn anyone who stands in the way of this forthright and determined woman.
An album of sheer will that gets under the covers of what Blues means, very much her own spirit, Kat Riggins is a tornado touching down on the genre, and one that is willing to blow the cobwebs and debris of the art away.
Ian D. Hall