Heart Album: “Little Queen [Limited Edition]”

I had this album on vinyl, 8Trac and casset. I wore every one out.

I remember seeing Heart just before this album was released. Like every other young man in the room I fell in love when Ann Wilson sang "Love Alive." I bought it the week it came out and have loved it ever since. Like Dreamboat, and now Jupiter.

So here's the deal...

This is an album that every Rock fan should own. The remastered values are good and the added tracks fit in whith the theme of the album well. Long live the Queens of Rock!

Like other Heart fans, I awaited this release to be re-mastered, and was happy it finally had been. But oh no...a very tin-eared engineer has poorly performed such an enjoyable task! The other glowing reviews about sound (on this page and elsewhere) are way off. Apparently, they are unfamiliar with the original sound of the vinyl...the depth, detail, and richness that the LP had. So, it's a great release that sounds awful...stick with the LP for now!

One of my very favourite albums. Heart wear their Zeppelin influence on their sleeve for this one, with opening track "Barracuda" making their intentions clear upfront, drawing heavily on "Achilles Last Stand" off Presence, and it's no surprise to see Stairway appear as an extra track on the remasters.

There is some great guitar work on this album, with a broad range of sounds & styles, much like Zeppelin: big rock numbers (Barra, Kick It Out) right thru to gentle (& not-so-gentle) ballads (Love Alive). I've always especially liked "Go On Cry", which builds from a gentle but slightly sinister guitar motif up to a rousing solo then back down to a Floyd-ish finale. Leese & Fischer's guitars are a joy together.

Anne's voice is stunningly powerful on several tracks - a real feature of the album. What is it about Canadian girl/rock bands? And she wasn't (isn't?) just a studio performer, Heart's live albums show her to be a simply amazing live singer.

And if all this wasn't enough, the amazing guitar & songwriting skills of (dare I say beautiful??) Nancy Wilson. Who wasn't in love with her in 1978??

As an example of the best of it's style at the time, you can't go far past this one.

If this entire album had sounded like "Barracuda," this might have been called Big Queen. What this song did establish with that galloping, snarling guitar was that women could rock. Although they did reach rock peaks with the Bebe Le Strange and Heart albums, this set the standard, something that would be duplicated in the song "Back In Black II" from Desire Walks On.

The next three songs have a kind of nature theme sound to them. Must be that album cover with the gypsy-like caravan. The mellow "Love Alive" features some exotic instruments, such as a flute, tabla and an autoharp. The tempo then picks up with drums and electric guitar, mirroring that "sunbeam arch thrilled me to my weary heart/It was the prettiest thing I ever seen" line sung a few verses earlier. In some ways, this reminds me of a stripped down "Magic Man."

The brief instrumental "Sylvan Song" has Nancy Wilson and Roger Fisher on mandolins. That and the moog bass by Howard Leese gives it an alternately folky and new age sound to it.

This segues into "Dream Of The Archer", which gives an medieval lyrical image, with Wilson and Fisher still on mandolins. The sylphs in the forest have clearly bewitched the archer here.

"Kick It Out" is the other rocker about a wild child. Her motto: "Kick out your motor and drive/while you're still alive--kick it out."

The next three songs make a sagging midsection that causes me to deduct a point. The title track is a mid-paced number with a prominent bass. Then comes Nancy's solo vocal number, the ballad "Treat Me Well", which has a touch of blues, and is helped out by piano and drums accompaniment. However, this isn't one of their better songs. The quasi-skiffle of "Say Hello" is lively with the mandolin riffs, with Ann's echoing vocals, but...

Fortunately, Little Queen is rescued at the last moment with the last two songs. It's comforting ballad time with "Cry To Me", where the only instrument is Nancy's acoustic. The last verse is my favourite: "You're lonesome over a stormy Ocean/Lost in the rain and wind/We can clear these clouds away/and feel the Sun again." That segues into "Go On Cry," which starts with a guitar, with strings rising in the background, then drums, a slow bluesy riff. Ann and Nancy sing the title in harmony over and over. They would perfect this style ballad in "Mistral Wind."

Also noticeable on this album is the absence of Sue Ennis, but that's a few albums away. Big Queen this ain't, but there are two rock princesses called Ann and Nancy.

Little Queen is my favorite Heart album, and I'm a big fan who has most of their stuff. A total classic in the style and league of Zeppelin IV.