Heartbreaker - FREE****

Wishing Well/Come Together In The Morning/Travellin' In Style/Heartbreaker/Muddy Water/Common Mortal Man/ Easy On My Soul/Seven Angels

Heartbreaker was the final album from the respected blues-rock band Free and they go out in style. Their demise was particularly regrettable as the successor group Bad Company was a poor substitute. Includes the UK No.7 hit Wishing Well. (US:47 UK:9)

“The Heartbreaker LP was Free's swan song, as the legendary English group went out in style. It is a solid recording of blues-based tracks, that trip back to the early days of the group. Over a relatively short time this proud English group delivered the goods, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the greats from the British blues-rock movement.”

“Ironically, given the band's fractured and insecure state, they produced their strongest album at their demise. A stunningly good collection of songs and arrangements, many fleshed out with the welcome addition of the Hammond organ, which gave their sound a fuller and richer quality.” “It was their swansong and a fitting end to a great band. There are no filler tracks here and in some places it just lifts you to heights you didn't think music could take you. Wishing Well is probably one of the great rock tracks of all time.”

“The album has its fair share of bluesy rockers but it is the slower, more soulful numbers that really make this special. The vocals of Paul Rogers are at times quite stunning in the emotion they are able to convey, and on Come Together In The Morning he and guitarist Paul Kossoff are captured at an absolute peak. Paul Rodgers also pens all the other tunes on the disc and has never written a better bunch of songs.”

“Heartbreaker finds a young band stepping into maturity to defy the process of disintegration. Whatever was happening to them at the time, Free turned out one of the best and most enduring recordings. Though Bad Company would rock harder and sell many more records, they never came close to the sublime majesty of this.”

“Wishing Well is a perfectly formed rock single, but what follows it is also largely magnificent. There's nothing exceptional about the songwriting in Come Together, but the performance is one of the supreme moments in recording history; where on earth did Paul Kossoff find those guitar solos? They really are not of this world.”