It was obvious on their 2005 debut album,
Stairs and Elevators, that though the
Heartless Bastards were a band, it was clearly vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter
Erika Wennerstrom who was not only the star of the show but the one calling the creative shots. By the time they issued their third LP, 2009's
The Mountain,
Wennerstrom was the only original member left in the group, and in 2018, she released a solo album,
Sweet Unknown.
Wennerstrom has chosen to reclaim the
Heartless Bastards banner for 2021's
A Beautiful Life, but it sounds and feels more like a solo effort than anything in the band's previous catalog.
Wennerstrom recorded
A Beautiful Life with an ad hoc band made up of journeyman musicians and players from other bands, including
David Pulkingham and Lauren Gurgiolo on guitars,
Jesse Chandler on keyboards, clarinet, and flute,
Bo Koster on keyboards, and Greggory Clifford on drums. While the players deliver top-shelf performances and support
Wennerstrom's vocals and melodies with admirable skill, they lack the intuitive feel of a group that's learned to read one another before they worked up these songs, and the tunes go in enough different directions to confound expectations of sonic unity. All of which is to say that
A Beautiful Life is the work of
Erika Wennerstrom, not the
Heartless Bastards, and while that might seem like a dubious distinction, it does make a difference in the way the work plays out. That said, if
A Beautiful Life is an
Erika Wennerstrom solo album, it happens to be a very good one, sounding more confident and ambitious than
Sweet Unknown, and eager to take chances. Those include the string charts on several tracks, the beats informed by hip-hop and contemporary R&B, the melodies that look towards adult pop formats rather than the blues-based framework of their first works, the canny use of dynamics and extended arrangements, the spacious tone of the production (by
Kevin Ratterman in tandem with
Wennerstrom) and mix, and the graceful passion and literacy of these songs, which expands the personal observations of the early
Heartless Bastards material with the addition of social and political statements that still feel honest and human. Think of
A Beautiful Life as a solo album travelling in the disguise of a group effort (much like how
the Replacements'
All Shook Down can be easily read as a
Paul Westerberg solo project), and you get a clearer picture of the personality of this music, though it documents
Wennerstrom continuing to mature as an artist with a talent and vision that connects regardless of branding. ~ Mark Deming