(Blues Rock) Beth Hart - Better Than Home (Deluxe Edition) - 2015/2022, MP3, 320 kbps

Better Than Home is the seventh solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Beth Hart. Hart's husband and her manager convinced her to work with the production team of Rob Mathes and Michael Stevens, whom she had met when she performed at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012. Hart had worked with Kevin Shirley for her last three albums, but she was persuaded to try a different team and go a different direction. The production team challenged Hart to leave behind the darker themes and to "write more about my joy and what I believe in and what my love is." Hart was pushed to write songs that came from a different source, from when she was happy or having a good time. One song on the album, "Tell Her You Belong to Me", took her a year and a half to write.
"Hart explores new realms on Better Than Home, both creatively and production-wise. In addition to balancing sensitive songwriting topics with moments of hope and reflection, Hart also found new producers in Michael Stevens and Rob Mathes, both of whom Hart met after performing at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012. Better Than Home shows Hart moving forward as a musician and songwriter." (Meghan Roos, bluesrockreview.com)
"Separating from producer Kevin Shirley for the first time in three records, Beth Hart chose to work with Rob Mathes and Michael Stevens for 2015's Better Than Home. A change in producers helped Hart change direction, letting her depart from the down-and-dirty blues belting she specialized in throughout her time with Shirley, reconnecting slightly to her singer/songwriter beginning while emphasizing deep soul roots. Despite opening with the tight Memphis groove of "Might as Well Smile," most of the album is grandly introspective -- majestic brooding ballads with a clear debt to early Elton John. This cinematic landscape provides a nice contrast to Hart's raw, nervy vocals, accentuating the aching in her delivery. This emotional immediacy compensates for the sometimes elliptical songs, songs that take a little while to settle, but the risks Hart's taken on Better Than Home pay off: this is a distinctive, ambitious record that takes advantage of her natural talents in surprising ways." (Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG)