Genre: Hard Rock. Folk Rock
Released by: Concord Music Group
Release date: 8 July 2016
Tracklist:
1. Beautiful broken
2. Two
3. Sweet Darlin’
4. I Jump
5. Johnny Moon
6. Heaven
7. City’s Burning
8. Down on me
9. One word
10. Language of Love
Line Up:
Ann Wilson – Vocals, autoharp
Nancy Wilson – Guitars, mandolin, vocals,
Craig Bartock – Guitars
Chris Joyner – Piano
Dan Rothchild – Bass, Vocals, Piano, Steel Lap Guitar
Ben Smith– Drums
“Beautiful Broken”is Hearts 16th studio album, it is a mix of new music and reimagining of previous releases. Not having heard any of their previous attempts at the reworked tracks I cannot compare the two.
The album kicks off with the title track, ‘Beautiful Broken’, this is an upbeat introduction to the laid back album with Ann Wilson vocals being complimented by a guest vocal slot from James Hetfield (Metallica). Two, is track two, (where else would you put a song called that on an album), this is one of many love ballads on this album. It has a gentle flowing feel about, with the piano providing the majority of the backing melody. This is followed by another Ballard, ‘Sweet Darlin’, this has a string section accompaniment, to complement more of Ann’s vocals.
‘I jump’ is a more up tempo number, which you can happily nod along to, again with more strings providing a solo.
‘Johnny Moon’ is another a ballad, this time telling the story of a girl trying to attract the attention of ‘Johnny Moon’, again with nice clean vocals from Ann, which is constant throughout this album. Track 6 ‘Heaven’ drifts off to prog/folk territory, which makes it no surprise to learn that ‘Heaven’ is the longest track on the album. ‘City’s Burning’ returns to more hard rock leanings, and would not go amiss at any classic rock party. ‘Beautiful Broken’ finishes off with 3 more tracks that you can quite easily class as rock ballads, with ‘Language of Love’ reminding me of a 70’s movie lovesong.
If you love your love songs in the style of rock ballads, then this album is perfect for you. Heart know what they are good at and do it well. Don’t be surprised if you find any of these tracks on a Valentine’s rock love song compilation come next February. I found the album getting slightly tedious towards the end, not because there is anything wrong with the album, but there is very little variation on the theme and I do get bored easily.
Reviewer: Kalli Isborne
Rating: 7/10
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