Obsessed  –  Mishti (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

It’s difficult to imagine what someone obsessed by Chicago Blues, Klezmer and Slash could possible fashion those musical strands into. Difficult that is until you hear Mishti and her mercurial pop-rock blends. Raw rock guitar vibes collide into pop aware melodics, western blues structures are coloured in by eastern exoticness and strange arabesque riffs add depth and detail to the whole affair. Parts of it you have heard before, much of it is wholly and unexpectedly new.

Riffs coil and writhe like dangerous serpents, beats pound out tribal rhythms and Mishti displays a vocal strength and range which matches the pace and pitch of the music. This is no holds barred music, reined in just enough to fashion something of raw and windswept beauty.

In this age of R&B divas and pouting pop girl gangs it often feels as if the heady days of the female rocker, when the girls who had served their time in the classic rock trenches or proudly displayed the scars and bruises gained fighting in the punk wars like a badge of honour, had been signed to the annals of history. Thankfully artists like Mishti and her uncompromising approach and force of character are proving once more that the term “having balls” isn’t meant to be taken literally.