From the Time Out NY
March 2005
By Jay Ruttenberg

A straight-up Midwestern rock & roll band, the Heartless Bastards reveal their weapon 15 seconds into "Stairs and Elevators": the blinding roar of Erika Wennerstrom, which cuts straight through this debut album with unflinching ferocity. A pretty young blond woman from Cincinnati, the guitar player is blessed with a gutsy and androgynous singing voice that's suggestive of Robert Plant, minus his girly frills. She has written music to serve her gullet: On "Stairs and Elevators", Heartless Bastards spit out songs that are at once epic and gritty. There is a blues undercurrent - the record was released last month on the neo-Mississippi Delta imprint Fat Possum - but even on its Junior Kimbrough cover, the scrappy trio manages to add a spectacular edge.

In January, the Heartless Bastards played Mercury Lounge, arriving half an hour late for their early-bird set, just like real rock stars.Their lunkheaded van navigation left the musicians huffing for air - like a friend who shows up late for dinner only to spend the meal apologizing for his lateness- but they were an onstage force nonetheless. Wennerstrom's songs have a 70s grandiosity, as if rock music could save lives: Her work bears an improbable resemblance to that of bands like the Strokes or Oasis, and, like those acts, she sometimes struggles to meet her lofty objectives. Mostly, however, this small-scale group hits its marks. "I tell you what I'm gonna do," Wennerstrom warns in "Gray," that first song on the album. "I'm gonna take everything, everything!" What she sings next is indecipherable, but no matter: her point has been well taken.