HEART - FANATIC (VINYL LP) 2012

With Heart's Fanatic, a new studio album, and Kicking and Dreaming, an insiders' memoir, arriving this fall, 2012 is shaping up as a banner year for the iconic American band whom beginning with hits like "Crazy on You," "Magic Man," and "Barracuda" in the mid-1970s running through 2010's Red Velvet Car, have created an enduring catalog of bona fide stadium rock classics and power ballads while establishing a lasting template for women in rock. Fanatic is Heart's 14th studio album overall and the group's second full-length for Legacy. Fanatic premieres 10 new essential performances from sisters Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson on songs including "Fanatic," "Dear Old America," "Walkin' Good" (featuring Sarah McLachlan), "Skin and Bones," "Million Miles," "Pennsylvania," "Mashallah," "Rock Deep (Vancouver)," "59 Crunch," and "Corduroy Road." The first album of new music from Ann and Nancy Wilson since 2010's Red Velvet Car had its Top 10 debut in 2010, Fanatic was recorded in hotel rooms and studios up and down the West Coast, with Grammy-winning producer Ben Mink back at the helm with the Wilson sisters drawing from their own lives and personal experiences as inspiration for their music. "Dear Old America" comes from memories of a military household and is written from the point of view of their father, a Marine Corps officer, returning from war ("When I get home, I'm going to own this town/Shine this medal/Wear that crown"); "Rock Deep (Vancouver)" harkens back to the city where "Dreamboat Annie" was written; and "Walkin' Good" (a duet with Vancouver resident Sarah McLachlan) captures the joy of finding new life in a new love.