Led Zeppelin made their name in the late \u201960s by juxtaposing thunderous, chord-crunching rockers with airy, pastoral acoustic numbers. This yin\/yang dichotomy dazzled a generation of listeners to the point where it\u2019s questionable how many of them noticed that if you closed your eyes, lead vocalist Robert Plant\u2019s throaty wails sometimes sounded more than a little like Janis Joplin. <\/p>\n
The Wilson sisters of Heart certainly didn\u2019t overlook that connection, delivering in the second half of the \u201970s their own string of Zeppelinesque albums contrasting heavy rock with gentle acoustic ballads. (They\u2019ve since made their inspiration even clearer with repeated live covers of \u201cRock & Roll\u201d and a magnificent 2012 performance of \u201cStairway to Heaven\u201d at the Kennedy Center Honors<\/a>.) Tracing the line down to today, any number of other male and female-fronted bands have trod that same trail of heavy\/light juxtaposition, most recently including Kaleo, whose 2016 debut A\/B<\/i><\/a> segregates tracks into a side A of roaring hard rock and a side B of mostly acoustic tunes. <\/p>\n The question you\u2019re naturally left with once you head down that familiar trail is, what can you bring us that\u2019s fresh? <\/p>\n Mel Bryant\u2019s debut full-length High Priestess<\/i> is divided in much the same fashion as A\/B<\/i>, with the heavier material up front in the six-song Part I and the mellower cuts waiting in the second half \/ Part II. Kickoff cut \u201cPoint A Finger\u201d sets the tone, an attitude-filled, bone-crunching blues-rocker with this welcome line: \u201cI got a filthy mouth but at least I ain\u2019t ever been mean\u201d (personally, meanness offends me much more than the occasional swear). \u201cGrowing Pains\u201d follows with a strong r&b undercurrent and sassy horns before Bryant goes heavy again for the stripped-down, intense \u201cThe Other Side\u201d (\u201cIt\u2019s not radical to love \/ Do you wanna help or do you wanna just be right?\u201d).<\/p>\n The latter half of Part I isn\u2019t quite as strong, with \u201cDown\u201d and the title track both feeling a bit clich\u00e9d lyrically, though the musical vibe on each track is strong. In between, Bryant cuts loose vocally on the grinding, deliberate \u201cCutting Board,\u201d striding right up to the fine line between dramatics and histrionics and dancing right on top of it.<\/p>\n