Restless Ones
Restless Ones establishes Heartless Bastards as a straightforward arena-rock band, one that's grown more refined with time. Erika Wennerstrom's voice is as exquisitely engaging in its world-weary twang as always.
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The fifth album from Ohio-to-Texas transfers Heartless Bastards is the expected serving of blues-flavored garage rock, characterized by crunchy guitar tones and Erika Wennerstrom's big, impassioned vocals.
Review of the new LP from Heartless Bastards 'Restless Ones.' The band's forthcoming album comes out June 16 onPartisan. The lead single is "Gates Of Dawn."
There are plenty of bands whose entire existence is predicated upon imitating the sounds of rock’s storied “heyday” in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and just as many, if not more, snarky comments on the internet disparaging those bands as regressive and unimaginative, including by yours truly. Indeed, I once referred to Kings of Leon as “a Bad Company fan’s platonic ideal of a rock band,” which I absolutely did not mean as a compliment. However, there’s a convincing argument to be made that going on stage with two guitars, drums and bass is an inherently retro act, and why bother disguising that? The Heartless Bastards sure don’t, and in addition to possessing a name that somehow no one had thought of in the half century prior to their formation in 2003, the band has something going for them on their fifth album, Restless Ones, that most contemporary throwback artists don’t: they’re not just clearly indebted to classic rock, they write and record songs that wouldn’t actually sound out of place on your local classic rock station between “Brown Sugar” and “More Than A Feeling.”