Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
We are attracted to the raging fire in ways that the cold and impenetrable icebergs cannot fathom, the jagged, spiky chunks of ice may look cool but once you seek below the exterior you find nothing true, nothing substantial; and yet the passion of the fire, the enthusiasm of seeing the energy burn, of being close to the inferno…that’s as true, as authentic as you can possibly hope to be in the presence of.
One of the most impressive voices of Blues Rock that America has produced in the last forty years, Beth Hart returns with an intense studio album, the first of her own material since 2019s sensational War In My Mind, the equally vocally and forceful You Still Got Me and the understanding between artist and audience has rarely been hot-blooded or zealously avid.
Known for digging deep into her soul, for thriving in a space musically that others refuse to step within out of fear of what it will do, of the emotional burn they will have to admit to feeling; and the resulting sensation is a truth of ignition, of the fire from the engine creating an album of reaction that is barely contained and which is almost impossible to extinguish.
You Still Got Me is an album of constant eruption and movement, each track caught between held fast love and a blast of volcanic release that could, and should, blot out the sun.
The album, which features the illustrious names of Slash and Eric Gales, is more than a hitherto look and flash of the extraordinary, it is statement, a declaration that the groove is swift, it rocks, and has the Blues welded to it with an industrial might; an unbreakable bond that sees tracks such as the openers Saviour With A Razor and Suga N My Bowl, the spectacle of Drunk On Valentine, the truth of endurance in Wanna Be Big Bad Johnny Cash, the yearning of Little Heartbreak Girl, Don’t Call The Police, and the fantastic fierceness that is underlined and punctuated in Never underestimate A Gal explode over the conscious of the listener.
You Still Got Me is a testimonial, a storm of reward for the consummate entertainer, for the woman of passionate delivery; one to bowled over by.
Beth Hart releases You Still Got Me on 25th October via Provogue/Mascot Label Group.
Ian D. Hall