HAMISH HAWK 'A Firmer Hand ' (Album Review)

Anyone naming a song ‘The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion 1973’ who then manages to make the end product an unforgettable 4-minute pop-art mini epic probably needs to be taken seriously. 

Enter cult hero Hamish Hawk, a suave Edinburgh based singer songwriter crafting cerebral yet incurably romantic pop over the past decade, garnering appreciative musings in all the right places; ‘A Firmer Hand’ released on 16th August by So recordings, marking his fifth release in all and third under the HH moniker. Hawk’s latest offering proves a liberating, supremely confessional affair centering on his relationships with all the men in his life. Lead single ‘Big Cat Tattoos’, home of the album’s title serves up a groove laden faux-macho roller disco romp, the perfect vehicle for Hawk’s performative baritone vocal, seemingly from a bygone age.

‘A Firmer Hand’ taps into a rich seam of artful singer songwriters from Scott Walker to John Grant, betraying Hawk’s forays into his louche netherworld looking for kicks. Saying that, Hawk still finds time for tender moments such as the achingly beautiful interlude Christopher St. Comprising just 90 seconds of tottery voice and piano, welded to the same melody, it gives the impression of someone’s tentative first foray into songwriting. 

Loquacious without ever straying into Leonard Sachs territory, Hawk delivers catchy pop and acerbic wit aplenty throughout the dozen numbers, whilst managing to stay on the right side of accessibility. The sleek ‘Autobiography of Spy’ smacks of an Ian Fleming novel. One can almost picture the loosened ties wrapped around sweat laden shirt collars beneath linen suits, cigarette smoke being chopped up by a ceiling fan in some far flung colonial outpost. 

Always clever yet seldom smart-arsed. 

Words by Michael Price

A Firmer Hand is out now on So Recordings

Hamish Hawk official

                       Tracklisting:

1.      Juliet as Epithet

2.      Machiavelli's Room

3.      Big Cat Tattoos

4.      Nancy Dearest

5.      Autobiography of Spy

6.      You Can Film Me

7.      Christopher St.

8.      Men Like Wire

9.      Questionable Hit

10.  Disingenuous

11.  Milk an Ending

12.  The Hard Won