Sharkk Heartt - Wars Our Mothers Fought
SHARKK HEARTT RELEASES SUPERLATIVE ‘WARS OUR MOTHERS FOUGHT’
Singer-songwriter Sharkk Heartt, aka Lara Ruggles, recently released her debut album, Wars Our Mothers Fought.
Sharkk Heartt | Photo: Kevin Hainline
The album, which took three years to record, mix, and master, had its genesis four years ago when Lara was in her car on the way to Tucson, where her parents lived. She was 30 years old, had a broken, her band had dissolved, and she couldn’t make ends meet, so she was moving in with her dad and stepmom.
She explains, “I was questioning the hell out of myself. I was writing songs that were bigger than me, finally - that dealt with things in the world on a larger scale than just me and my own emotional experience. These songs gave me purpose in a time when I had lost the thread.”
Prior to Wars Our Mothers Fought, Lara released a pair of folk-pop albums and a single under her name, Lara Ruggles, followed by two singles as Sharkk Heartt. Her downtempo pop sound collected features in PopMatters, Elmore Magazine, Denver Westword, Marquee Magazine, The Huffington Post, YabYum Magazine, and The Tucson Weekly, as well as sharing the stage with LeAnn Rimes and touring with queer activist and poet Andrea Gibson.
Encompassing seven tracks, the album begins with “One Step,” blending low-slung electro-pop flavors with tints of folk-pop. Gleaming yet full of emotional shadows, the lyrics reflect intense passionate shifts.
Edgy and crystalline, Lara’s voice infuses the song with elusive recollection, at once ghostly and palpable.
Talking about “One Step,” Lara shares, “This song wasn’t about anyone in particular, but about all the men who had been important to me and this feeling that when they left my orbit, it destabilized me, and I wasn’t what was at my own center.”
From a subjective viewpoint, entry points include “Call Us What We Are,” opening on a sparkling piano riding throbbing pulses as Lara’s haunting voice flows overhead, imbuing the lyrics with urgent pressure.
“Don’t call me sweetheart / Unless you’re my sweetheart / And if you were my sweetheart, you’d know /… Call us what we are.”
“Nothing But Family” rolls out on a luscious, austere piano topped by Lara’s deliciously sinewy tones, while radiant vocal harmonies give the song stripped-down depth and dimension. Whereas “Hush We Found” travels on brooding, dark, melancholic washes, almost stark in their suffusions. Edgy and crystalline, Lara’s voice infuses the song with elusive recollection, at once ghostly and palpable.
The final track, “This Will Hurt,” features an electric piano emanating dirge-like trembles as Lara’s redolent timbres offer a glimpse into the piercing price of change.
Simultaneously tantalizing and imminent, on Wars Our Mothers Fought, Sharkk Heartt offers bewitching sonic ensorcellment – hypnotic, delicate, and muscular.
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