{"id":20268,"date":"2022-05-02T12:47:07","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T16:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=20268"},"modified":"2022-05-02T12:53:34","modified_gmt":"2022-05-02T16:53:34","slug":"album-review-ann-wilson-fierce-bliss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=20268","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Ann Wilson &#8211; Fierce Bliss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ll be totally honest. I have always been a casual <strong>Heart<\/strong> fan and never delved too deep into their material. I&#8217;ve always loved the songs I heard, but <strong>Ann Wilson<\/strong>&#8216;s voice has always blown me away. The early days of Heart in the &#8217;70s, their re-invented sound in the &#8217;80s and &#8217;90s, and their return to their classic roots in the &#8217;00s are a testament to how diversity was the key to longevity. Ann Wilson has once again stepped out in 2022 with <em>Fierce Bliss<\/em>, an album comprised of both covers and original material.<\/p>\n<p>Kicking off with the song &#8220;Greed,&#8221; I was taken back by the song&#8217;s overall vibe, mood, and lyrics. &#8220;Greed&#8221; is a dark rocker that showcases Wilson&#8217;s powerhouse vocals. This song made me remember what a great vocalist she is; it floored me how her voice has only gotten more intense and more Heart piercing with a slight rasp with age. This song had me excited for what was to come and grabbed 100% of my attention.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Black Wing,&#8221; the second track, is without a doubt my favorite song. This is the album&#8217;s showstopper, and I will even go as far as to say that this may be Ann Wilson&#8217;s finest moment in decades. &#8220;Black Wing&#8221; was the first song written for this album in the early days of the pandemic. It was inspired by the birds around St. John&#8217;s River near her home. With a dark, atmospheric groove that reminds me a bit of early Alice In Chains, this song reflects a life long-lived by someone who lived to write and sing about it.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Ann Wilson - Black Wing Live\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hi8ozMUOnpQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Love of My Life,&#8221; by Queen featuring country legend\/current Eagles member Vince Gill is where Fierce Bliss derails a bit. In all honesty, it&#8217;s not the song itself as much as it is the inclusion of Vince Gill. A vocalist like Ann Wilson doesn&#8217;t need support or accompaniment, and I feel that Gill&#8217;s appearance took away from what could&#8217;ve been a perfect cover of a great, timeless song.<\/p>\n<p>Another highlight of <em>Fierce Bliss<\/em> is &#8220;Angel&#8217;s Blues,&#8221; which showcases Wilson&#8217;s versatility and passion for music without limitations. Wilson co-wrote this one with long-time Allman Brothers Band\/Gov&#8217;t Mule guitar legend Warren Haynes. According to Wilson, Warren gave her a version of this song performed by Gov&#8217;t Mule without any vocals. This created a clean slate for Wilson to put pen to paper and pen a song that could very well have been an Allman Brothers classic.<\/p>\n<p>All in all, <em>Fierce Bliss<\/em> may be one of the most pleasant surprises of 2022 for me so far. I was not expecting such an electrifying, powerful collection of songs. Fierce Bliss is an album that I feel solidifies Ann Wilson as a relevant voice of Rock N&#8217; Roll that has aged like fine wine but managed to sound current instead of dated, tired, or overly nostalgic. This is not your &#8217;70s Heart if that&#8217;s what you&#8217;re expecting. <em>Fierce Bliss<\/em> is powerful, fun, exciting, and fans of good ol&#8217; Rock N&#8217; Roll, both old and young, will have a soft spot for <em>Fierce Bliss<\/em>. This is Ann Wilson in the now, and she is showing no signs of going anywhere but forward.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ll be totally honest. I have always been a casual Heart fan and never delved too deep into their material. I&#8217;ve always loved the songs I heard, but Ann Wilson&#8216;s voice has always blown me away. The early days of Heart in the &#8217;70s, their re-invented sound in the &#8217;80s and &#8217;90s, and their return to their classic roots in the &#8217;00s are a testament to how diversity was the key to longevity. Ann Wilson has once again stepped out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":20272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2448,2087,2080,2312,2230,2229,2085,2077,180,2078,2090,2084,2086,2079,2076,2196,2088,2089,1844,2081,2082,2083],"class_list":["post-20268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","tag-ann-wilson","tag-classic-rock","tag-classic-rock-blog","tag-death-metal","tag-folk-music-blog","tag-folk-rock-blog","tag-hard-rock","tag-hard-rock-blog","tag-heavy-metal","tag-heavy-metal-blog","tag-instrumental-bands","tag-mailchimp","tag-metal","tag-metal-blog","tag-music-blog","tag-occult-rock-blog","tag-prog-rock","tag-progressive-rock","tag-psych-rock","tag-psych-rock-blog","tag-psychedelic-rock-blog","tag-wordpress"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Image1-26.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20270,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20268\/revisions\/20270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}