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Heartless Bastards: Arrow

Partisan

After some lineup rejiggerings (new/old rhythm section and the addition of a guitar player), the dissolution of a longterm relationship, loads of touring, and a bit of solitary soul-searching, frontwoman Erika Wennerstrom is back with a Heartless Bastards record of elemental rootsy rock, filled both with riffage and sensitivity. There is a little more guitar filigree here than on 2009’s The Mountain (when they were a trio), but the material remains carveddown, sturdy and bare. Wennerstrom’s voice—which goes from aching to muscular, from froggy to explosive—is still the potent force at the music’s heart. She can fill a seemingly empty “oh-wow-oh” with more expressive power than most people cram into an entire song. And that voice is a little like a bottle of wine. It benefits from some time and air; it opens up. You might start thinking that you detect notes of chocolate, leather and dried cherries. It’s a product of sun and earth. And she sings of flood, rain, light and dirt, with plainspoken lyrics about long journeys home, mute partings, struggle, escape, simple pleasure and transcendence. This is music that somehow manages to be both epic and terse.