Heartless Bastards

Rarely does a female artist come along possessing the power of Erika Wennerstrom of Heartless Bastards. Playing guitar and wailing like the lost love child of Jeff Buckley and Polly Jean Harvey, she leads her rhythm section of Mike Lamping and Kevin Vaughn through these majestically muddy ten original tracks, never letting the intensity down for a second. While the band have a clear foundation in primal blues, it is Wennerstrom’s daring control of her voice, and skills at melody that inject much of the energy into the songs. Her lyrics also seem preoccupied with some sort of quest — as shown in "Searching for the Ghost,” "Finding Solutions” and "Came A Long Way” — that proves endlessly compelling. But it only takes a few songs to be swept away by the sheer weight of the band’s sound. All This Time is a genuine slab of soul-restoring rock, courtesy of a woman who clearly lives on a higher plane than the rest of us. In a word, breathtaking.