Ann Wilson

★★★ Fierce Bliss SILVER LININGS MUSIC. CD/DL/LP

Heart’s powerhouse vocalist enlists Vince Gill and covers Jeff Buckley on solo set. There’s a moment on the soundtrack to Singles – Cameron Crowe’s film set around the Seattle grunge scene – when a jangling dulcimer intro heralds a female baritone. It’s Heart’s Wilson sisters doing a cover of Led Zeppelin’s Battle Of Evermore and it’s a stand-out. Crowe made the case for Heart being cornerstones of the Seattle – and by extension grunge – scene and it’s not a completely mad theory: the Wilsons’ belief in the primacy of folk rock was even evident in their fright-wig era. Singer Ann’s third solo LP is her most Heart-like, cruising between drivetime and bluesrock. Her voice has aged wonderfully: the cracks and lowered register give ballast to material like Gladiator and Jeff Buckley’s Forget Her. A star is deducted for a cover of Eurythmics’ Missionary Man though, which sounds like karaoke night down at the Wig & Pen. Priya Elan