Surrender.
Kirsten Thien chose guitar playing and singing above the banking world some ten years ago and already released She Really Is in 2001 and You’ve Got Me in 2006.
It resulted in many live gigs, but no breakthrough. From the very first notes of Love Is Made To Share Thien proves how unjust that is. That opener overpowers because of her eager, expressive vocals, her band’s pumping rhythm, thwo fiery horns and guitar solos by both Arthur Neilson and Howlin’ Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin.
It is the perfect upbeat for eight songs that Thien (co)wrote and covers of Willy Dixon, Ida Cox and Charlie Feldman/Jon Tiven’s Taxi Love. That song is exemplary for all: drenched in blues, it oozes with sex when Thien sings how wonderful it is to be seduced on the backseat of a taxi driving through New York before the eyes of a truck driver. Apart from that the swinging song also grips you musically from beginning to end because of unexpected changes and accents.
In the other songs too Thien embodies her acoustic cover of blues pioneer Ida Cox’ Wild Women Don’t Have The Blues: she proves to be a passionate, self-conscious woman that knows what she wants, also when she does not get it. That goes both for her outspoken, sensual lyrics and for the inciting music that perfectly underlines it.
Thien is a great, but unfortunately yet undiscovered talent that rightly begs, moans and hollers to be discovered eleven songs and two radio edits long.
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