KATRINA
HEARTS, LOVES & BABYS
WW
KATRINA’S WEB
★★★
Anglophile Katrina Leskanich’s first album since 2014’s Blisland regularly turns to her American roots. Willing is inspired by John Steinbeck, and she consciously – and successfully – hunts out big-throated Shania Twain territory on Beyond Love. On I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, too, delivered here in a similarly jazzy style to Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga’s 2014 version, she takes on the American Songbook. Most importantly, however, many songs – in both their hefty production and rock-friendly arrangements – seem shaped for glossy 80s Hollywood blockbusters and the American FM radio which still broadcasts their theme tunes. Drive’s chugging guitars are interspersed with moments of LA glam – none of them any more original than its anthemic motoring metaphor, but nonetheless thoroughly suited to it – while Crazy Mama turns up the riffage quotient. I Want To Love Again was first written for Samantha Fox, offering some indication of its inclinations, though, remarkably, it wasn’t rock enough. Admittedly, Willing aims for Neil Young yet ends up sounding far older, but Holiday and Who We Are remind us of her Eurovision success, even if they’d have fared less well than Walking On Sunshine.