Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There is almost nothing better than the discreet musical discussions of the feminist argument in which to get your point across of self- sufficiency and self- respect which leads to admiration and a particular type of esteem eluded those that rant and rave at the slightest thing and merest sleight. Not just a feminist argument but a reconciliation between self-value and veneration in other’s eyes that you can walk away from a situation that is doing you harm.
Inside the country rooted songs of Laura Benitez and the Heartache’s new album Heartless Woman, that self-respect is highlighted and performed with a type of renaissance reasoning in which instead of playing to old-fashioned type in one way casual conversations about male/female relationships and the feeling of self-destruction that are normally entwined within the genre’s songs, plays to the musical heart of 21st Century realism and the guts it takes to talk/sing/perform about the misery and joy in life.
Laura Benitez and the Heartache play songs that resonate across both genders, songs that see the point in dealing with a situation with calm reassurance and a measured response rather than the tears of recrimination. Tracks such as Worst Vacation, the utterly compelling I Know You’re Bad, the enjoyable pastiche of some patterned male behaviour in Imitation Of You, the delight of uncaring realisation in Where You Gonna Be Tonight? and the tough issue of female alcoholism in Tear My Still House Down all combine to make Heartless Woman an album worthy of commendation.
It is in the album’s title track though that the album hangs its stock upon and its tone, its all-encompassing American Country, Americana, 21st Century feminist outlook gives a fresh outlook onto the way that the much thought of typical 60s, 70s and 80s look at women in relationships seemed to be dominated by the exact opposite of what male musicians of the genre were talking about. One gender would bemoan their choices, the other the disaster of recrimination and how it would leave them broken and untrusting in the future. Laura Benitez has changed all that and makes the song, indeed the album, something to treasure and also make note of in ways to heal the emotions of both sexes.
A wonderful album is which to wallow and resurface from; Heartless Woman is an Americana/Country classic in the making.
Ian D. Hall