Heartless Bastards

Restless Ones
Heartless Bastards
Partisan/Knitting Factory Records

Heartless Bastards blazes new trails with the release of its fifth album, Restless Ones. The quartet continues down the introspective road they first traveled on 2012’s Arrow, but this time the band occasionally stops to take in its surroundings and live in the moment.

Founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, over a decade ago and now based in Austin, Texas, the heart of Heartless Bastards has always been singer, songwriter, guitarist and pianist Erika Wennerstrom. She remains the only constant member, which in its current incarnation includes guitarist Mark Nathan, bassist Jesse Ebaugh, and drummer David Colvin. Restless Ones is this particular lineup’s second album together.

For Restless Ones, the band set up camp in El Paso, Texas, and did the bulk of the recording at Sonic Ranch with producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, The Mountain Goats). The studio was situated on a large tract of land, far from any real world distractions, and the band also lived on-site. The communal nature of the sessions, as all four members lived together and experienced the album’s creation every day, helped shape the ten songs on Restless Ones.

The album kicks off, guns blazing, with “Wind Up Bird,” featuring John Baggot of Robert Plant’s Sensational Space Shifters on keyboards. Flaming guitars, bashing drums, slightly fuzzed vocals, and Baggot’s distinctive keyboards drive this song, which flirts with a waltz-like pace at times. The proceedings back off a bit with the acoustic-electric mix of the catchy “Gates Of Dawn.”

The track “Hi-Line,” reworked from an earlier appearance on a film soundtrack, is a terrific bit of pop that relies on a clean, acoustic setting, allowing Wennerstrom’s vocals, often treated elsewhere with hazy distortion, to come clearly to the front. There is bounce in the band’s step on “Into The Light,” which slips into the sundrenched haze of “The Fool.” That song’s buzzing guitars, simmering keyboards, and ebullient bass line evokes the feel of an afternoon in the desert.

Restless Ones concludes with “Tristessa,” a sunburnt psychedelic mantra that borrows its title from the Jack Kerouac novella and provides the album with a meditative finale.

With Restless Ones, Heartless Bastards has forged a contemplative and confident piece of American rock, reflecting the heartland and its own maturation as a band. The group has blossomed with its most recent reconfiguration, allowing Wennerstrom, whose self-assured, passionate howl is the trademark of Heartless Bastards’ sound, to soar as one of the more distinctive voices in rock ‘n’ roll this year.

More:

Heartless Bastards - SXSW 2015
Heartless Bastards - SXSW 2013 (at Hotel San José)
Heartless Bastards - Words and Music - 2012

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