Heartless Bastards have made a living working within the confines of blues-influenced hard rock by injecting a slightly more contemporary energy into the muscle of their best songs. There’s little doubt lead singer Erika Wennerstrom can sing the living Christ out of a rock tune, and while it’s usually coupled with the pounding, John Bonham-like kick drums and chugging  (sometimes noodley) guitar riffs deployed as the Bastards primarily weapons, her song writing always seems to possess a boozy, tattered, underground edge that recklessly muddies up the group’s 70s cock rock aura.

I’m thankful because those archetypal stadium god poses would fit awkwardly on a scrappy, Texan band like this, and it’s obvious Paul Westerberg and The Replacements certainly loom just as large as Zeppelin or the Allman Brother’s Band in the Bastards rearview mirror. But while stacking them up against contemporaries like The Low Anthem and The Hold Steady (who have had a lock down on that “America’s Best Bar Band” label for the past decade that) The Bastards easily seem most comfortable plying their trade in what could be considered (in this day and age) bare bones “Rock and Roll,” a genre which, as this century rolls on, seems to be increasingly disenfranchised by both mainstream and alternative culture. (silent majority rock, anyone?) Continue reading →