Joanne Shaw Taylor, Reckless Heart - album review

The Black Country belle of the blues is back – Joanne Shaw Taylor has released her sixth record, Reckless Heart, to her adoringly loyal fanbase.

The Wednesbury musician has injected her smoke-infused vocal style into 11 new tracks complete with her signature swagger-filled guitar.

But for a genre that centres itself in concrete cases of emotion there is something lacking with this at times.

Joanne and her band have given us some real rip-roaring guitar slugs here. Bad Love is full of energy and upbeat rock. Her guitar positively growls throughout, the punchy melodies accompanied by some rib-tickling percussion that keeps the track upbeat and full of fun.

There’s also a lot of good to be said of the drawn-out, full on tantrum of a guitar solo in I’ve Been Loving You Too Long. As angry bass slithers along menacingly underneath, Joanne builds herself into a frenzy that will really rock spinal chords in her upcoming live tour. This lengthy instrumental is easily the most heart-stopping moment on the record.

Joanne Shaw Taylor previously plays the Robin 2

And there’s a big band feel to The Best Thing – Joanne’s vocals sound like sharpened honey as they croon over the top with a little sting in the tail. There’s more than a hunt of funk to this track that keeps heads bobbing and toes tapping from start to finish.

But there’s also plenty that veers a little too close to bland. I’m Only Lonely meanders for too long with ponderous bass and percussion. We know, this genre holds more melancholy than an emo teenager’s brain. But sometimes it drowns the music and slows everything down way past a necessary level.

Again this happens with closer Jake’s Boogie. Joanne plays acoustically, her guitar getting slapped about like a bedsheet on the washing line during Storm Gareth. But it aims for one pace change too many and starts to feel a little messy and distorted the further it goes on.

We’re glad Joanne is back – this is her first full-length since 2016’s Wild – but we had hoped for a little more oomph from one of this region’s underrated stars.

Rating: 6/10