In all, 2016 hasn’t been a great year in the annals of music history. It’s easy to feel a little despondent, and anxious for 2017 to wipe the slate clean. But before you go hitching your wagon to the new year, there’s something you just have to hear.
Beth Hart has been steadily dropping albums since the ‘90s, and goddamn if Fire on the Floor isn’t her best yet. A lot of albums purport to take you on a journey – sailing through various genres and tempos, pushing and pulling, the whole fire and ice game. But it’s a rare gem that makes you feel that you’ve actually arrived somewhere new.
These songs are so seductive and well-crafted that it’s outright jarring to move on to something else. Album opener, Jazzman, is a deceptively straight-forward jazz fusion number, a jaunty intro into the smoky decor of Club Hart, but once that voice hits its stride you know you’re in for a hell of a ride. Skip back and forth across the album – Coca Cola to Fat Man, for instance – and it isn’t just the versatility of tone that leaves you impressed. It’s almost as though Hart has access to a wardrobe of different voices; unmistakably her, but put to strikingly different use from track to track.
Hart has an earthy timbre that can suddenly leap to such soaring, searing notes you can just about feel them. Look no further than the epic Love Is A Lie. At times Hart’s lyrics might not hit their mark. But it would take a petulant ear not to get caught up in the energy and exuberance on offer. There’s still a few months left of 2016 and Fire on the Floor has a good shot at being one of the year’s top releases.
BY ADAM NORRIS
