Heartless Bastards: Stairs And Elevators : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Erika Wennerstrom badly needs a stage name, something better suited for her rock-goddess voice. The papers in her hometown of Dayton, Ohio, say that Wennerstrom is petite and shy, but when she opens her throat on Stairs and Elevators, the Heartless Bastards' debut, she sounds like she's wailing on the shoulders of giants; her sad and angry vocals channeling all the swagger and spit of a young Robert Plant, with none of the blues histrionics. "I don't even like myself half the time," she sneers on "New Resolution": "What's the use of worrying what's on other people's minds?" Elsewhere, the sleepy heartland dreamer peeks through: "Someday I'd like to play a part," she sings in "Autonomy," "in the life I waited to start." Factor in the commendable garage-rock pummeling of drummer Kevin Vaughn and bassist Mike Lamping, and the Heartless Bastards are a small-town band who are ready to show the big city no mercy.