LIONHEART

Released only 9 months after her brilliant debut album The Kick Inside, Lionheart was a rushed affair and it shows. It seems the recording company was eager to keep the ball rolling and cash in as much as they could while the novelty was hot. Accordingly, the same team of musicians/arrangers/producers were used again. Small wonder Bush herself had little time to come up with new material. In fact only three tracks on Lionheart were recent ones (Symphony In Blue, Fullhouse and Coffee Homeground), the remaining seven songs were old stuff, although she did rearrange them for this recording. And Bush herself did not hide her dissatisfaction about the whole affair in interviews over the years. She would never let the recording company rule her releases that way again.

So, in the end, that´s exactly how Lionheart sounds: a (mostly) collection of leftovers from The Kick Inside. It does not mean that her sophmore release is bad. Not at all. It´s just inferior. And it won´t grab you like The Kick Inside. It takes more time to sink in and although several tracks here are very good, none reaches the heights of her debut´s peaks. Lionheart nevertheless show Kate Bush maturing rapidly as an artist and the CD is more fluid than her previous one in terms of production and performances. It´s just a pity that the songs were not as powerful. Although this is her only CD not to make to the top 5, it did reach number 6 and stayed on the charts for 36 weeks, making it a worthy (commercially at least) effort.

Al in all, not a bad record from this remarkable and unique talented singer/songwriter. I understand why she was never happy with it. Fortunately she would prove herself several times in future releases. A lesser work from KB, but a nice one anyway. 3 stars.