Layla Zoe was born in the late 1970s but musically inhabits the late 1960s.
Janis Joplin is her most obvious influence both in terms of looks and raspy vocal style.
She has been dubbed 'Canada's darling of the blues', a label she proudly embraces.
She also prides herself on the raw honesty of her autobiographic songs which establish her as a former wild child who is now more settled and focused.
Father tells of a troubled upbringing and throughout she sings from the perspective of an older, wiser woman - "I've learnt all I could from the drugs and from the booze, now I'm learning to love myself with a new way to sing the blues" (I Choose You)
On Gemini Heart, she declares: "I'm just a strong, sensitive, strong kind of woman" - the clumsy repetition of the adjective 'strong' illustrates that her lyrics may be heartfelt but are not her strong point.
With her long red hair and heavily tattooed body, she looks a tough cookie but despite her feisty, independent image she still concedes, with no great originality, that there "ain't nothing like a real man" (Never Met A Man Like You).
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This is her seventh album and the second to be produced by German bluesman Henrik Freischlader whose blues-rock style is also rooted in the Woodstock era. For the title track, for example, his playing is straight out of Hendrix's Little Wing song book.
Other backing comes from Moritz 'Mr Mo' Fuhrhop of Freischlader's band who plays hammond organ.
The album opens with a solo a capella Glory, Glory, Hallelujah to show Zoe has the required chops although her mangling of the word 'hallelujah' is not pretty.
Freischlader wrote the music for the other ten tracks aside from the final track, a plodding cover of Neil Young's Hey,Hey,My, My ("this is the story of Johnny Rotten-Rotten-Rotten").
Overall, if bellbottom blues is your bag, you might dig this (man!) but for me there's too much retro and not enough brand new.
Layla Zoe's website
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