Heart – Beautiful broken

“Beautiful Broken” is the new album from Heart. On paper it’s their first new album for four years, but look a little closer and it’s not quite as you’d hope.  Of the ten tracks on the album, only three are actually new songs – the rest are just new versions of songs from previous albums.  That’s certain to disappoint many of their fans, but the important part is how the new versions sound compared to the originals – will they be different enough and sound good enough to justify buying the album, or will the new versions just be minor tweaks of the originals?

Well the answer is that the new versions sound very different to the originals. The originals come from the band’s early 80’s albums, “Bebe le strange”, “Passionworks” and “Private audition” so had quite a polished production, whereas the new versions have more of a 70’s sound.

The title track features a guest appearance from James Hetfield on guitar and also contributing some vocals. The song has a much heavier and more raw sound than the original and really sounds great. The original was a bonus track on the 2012 album, Fanatic, so it’s good to see it being made more widely available, especially since this version sounds so good.

“Two” is a new song and is unusual in that it’s not written by Heart – it’s actually written by R&B star Ne-Yo.  Hearing that you probably have some expectations about how it will sound, but it’s safe to say it sounds nothing like you’re probably thinking. It’s actually a beautiful ballad with piano and vocals. Fans who attended one of the UK dates on the bands recent tour will have heard this song and it’s just as good on the album as it was live.

At times Heart’s love of Led Zeppelin shows clearly in the music – new song “Heaven” being a good example.

While my initial reaction to the album may have been one of disappointment that it wasn’t all new material but was in fact largely reworked versions of existing songs, the album is actually very good – the new songs all sound great, and the new versions of the old songs are all great too – they’re very different to the originals and that makes this album definitely worth buying.

A great album.

Track listing:

1. Beautiful broken
2. Two
3. Sweet darlin’
4. I jump
5. Johnny moon
6. Heaven
7. City’s burning
8. Down on me
9. One word
10. Language of love