37 Days by Beth Hart

After the overwhelming response i got for releasing Beth's beautiful album Leave The Light On, I figured I would follow it up with her new album entitled 37 Days (named for the amount of days it took to make from start to finish for you music trivia buffs). A Return to Beth's raw powerful range spanning vocals and lyrics, she's grown alot since Leave The Light On, you can not only hear it in her voice, which ranges from soft and beautiful to raw and in your face screaming like a mad woman just trying to make herself noticed in a world thats so easy to brush aside those who aren't like others. Even more then in past albums solidifying her place as the successor to Janis Joplin's throne in the kingdom of white girl soul, a kingdom thats sadly vacant these days.

As you would expect, Beth jumps from blues to soul to rock to gospel to pop and hints of jazz in there, much as she's done on her last few albums, the songs again range from love songs to uplifting to angry, but yet, I find myself not really being bored with this formula from Beth, I don't know if its her voice or just her in general that makes me want to hear more and more, whatever it is, its on this album in spades, just as I had hoped it would. That in itself is a big sign, if i actually am looking forward to an album for months on end, you know its gotta be good... so lets get into it shall we?

The album starts off with "Good as it Gets" a loud ruckus blues rock track thats got number one hit all over it, assuming its given wings and let fly. Its sort of like the kind of song you'd hear in any blues bar down in the south when a waitress stepped up to sing a song with the band, that whole raw yet lovely song about love and life and living as best as she can. A great opening track honestly. Followed by "Jealousy" a sad bluesy love song about wanting to love someone with all that she has in side of her, but he doesn't want it anymore, Beth has this way of making the saddest things a picture painted in words that everyone can look at and see exactly what she means with it, assuming this album gets any press at all, "jealousy" will be one of those big break up songs. The next track is the awesomely done but strange "One Eyed Chicken", this is a definite rock anthem if I've ever heard one, the beautiful guitar work, the easy to sing along too chorus and bridge, this is the kind of song you wanna turn up really loud and just make the people around you know just how awesome it is. The next song is "Over You", another of her empowering blues ballads, this is normally where Beth shines, her voice comes through so vulnerable and so beautiful in songs like this, I just love it. The next song is "Sick", a very high speed almost kinetic rock anthem that just makes you wanna play it really loud and yell along, its just incredible, normally by the middle of the album for most artists start getting choppy, but not here, still pushing through with the same fury and fire as always, is the next song, "Face Forward" a straight up rock song about the "war" in the middle east, it sounds like Fortunate Son had wild sex with the time in the 1980s when women knew how to rock, not that thrashing around a stage like a stripper excrement you find today in "rocker chicks", there is alot of Joan Jett in this one, oddly I also here some late 1960s Tina Turner in there too, lovely track. The next song "soul shine", brings things down to a lovely "spotlight" style sound with mostly Beth, a piano and some smaller instruments, very lovely and a very positive track about being yourself no matter what happens. This is followed by the lovely "Forever young" a very low indie track that I honestly believe is the best track on the album, its looking back at her first love and those summers we never want to end when we're teenagers, this track speaks so much about Beth as a person its just so great. "Easy" is a song where Beth spends alot of time talking about life and death and her ideas on both, very uplifting, and lovely done. "Heaven Look Down" is next, and its almost an uptempo gospel track, though its really a social commentary about the world as a whole and how we've all kind of lost our way. The tempo picks up abit with "Missing You" a song that though you think is about someone else, makes me wonder if its really about Beth missing who she believes she once was, the next song "Waterfalls" I must admit I'm not really sure what thats about exactly, but its really a neat little song, it gives you a great incite into Beth herself and the music is just awesome. The album ends on a nice mellow note, the last two songs "Crashing Down" and "At the Bottom" seem almost linked in a way, speaking about Beth's depression and her inner demons and how its so easy for those sort of things to eat you alive if you let them. They're rather sad, but beautiful in their own way as well.



As a whole this album is a beautiful opus of a person's continuing struggle to come back from losing it all and how even though you can come back from a huge setback, you can feel not complete, and spend all your time trying to rediscover that side of yourself that feels lost. Do i think this album is for everyone? hell yes, do i think that long time fans and new ones should give this a listen? Most definitely. So what more are you waiting for? Click the link....

Artist: Beth Hart
Album: 37 Days
Genre: Blues, Rock, Soul, Indie

37 Days by Beth Hart

-BC