Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The last thing any Blues, or indeed any genre of music fan, would ever want is to come across a woman of sheer substance and fortitude and then ask for her to be tamed. No woman of Earth should ever have that ignominy thrust upon her, damaging her own will and thoughts; and certainly not to those who are natural and who have a Wild Heart.
It is somewhat of a pleasure, indeed a privilege, to listen to a woman that is a definition of substance and fortitude, whose strength of character exudes from every pore on the guitar and whose voice resonates with so much truth and feeling that it could lead a march on Greenham Common or be the rallying call to arms defending her nation from intruders, yet armed with just a guitar Samantha Fish typifies the struggle and the glory that follows and in Wild Heart, the rightly untameable becomes something of a heroine and icon.
The follow up to the astonishing Black Wind Howlin’, Wild Heart is a remarkable step into the American Roots. It is both an aural fixation and one that deals with contrast, an album that plays with the black and white appreciation of stark reality but also adds swathes of abundant colour to music so tempting it could hold an apple up and allow you a couple of bites and still not chuck you out of the garden.
What makes Samantha Fish so gloriously listenable is her voice, the odd tremor of deep fascination, of realism and overwhelming drama. This is a woman who has lived what she sings, there is no pretence, no social marker of the inadequate; this is a woman who is not just wild but completely natural.
Tracks such as Blame It On The Moon, Go Home, Lose Myself, the brilliant Bitch on the Run and the hopeful I’m In Love With You conspire, scheme and work together to show just how right it is to demand the wild at heart be allowed to dance to their own unregulated tune, for as Samantha Fish proves, their dance is all the better for it being played out properly and with no interference.
The world needs women such as Samantha Fish; it would be a damned boring place without them.
Wild Heart is released via Ruf Records on June 29th.
Ian D. Hall