When the bold, disenchanted and full-bodied scratch of Hamish Hawk's third album shook the waters of Scottish pop, many feared they were facing yet another flash in the pan. Luckily, the Edinburgh musician gave up on putting the autopilot of inspiration on, immediately changing the cards on the table with the following “Angel Numbers”: painful and baroque sounds took over the pop intoxications, for a deeper and more tormented collection of songs/poems with a fascinating damn. A feeling reinforced by the ennobling presence of Anna B Savage on the ecstatic “Frontman.”
“A Firmer Hand” is the album of Hamish Hawk's final exposition. The literary and poetic exuberance of his early days has been replaced by a visceral, at times brutal, language. Turbulent homoerotic passions, lacerating open-hearted confessions and explicit intimate declarations could make one think of yet another queer album, where the lyrics are more revealing than the musical content. Fear not, Hamish Hawk is now not only an excellent performer, but also a seasoned author.
The musician skillfully plays with his role as a successful musician in the polite “Questionable Hit”, broadens his horizons in the intelligent baroque-funky “Big Cat Tattoos” and shows off a pop attitude that has few equals in the current landscape in the vibrant “Nancy Dearest”. Explanatory lyrics and rich sexual imagery permeate the entire album. Hamish Hawk juggles sumptuous harmonies balanced between the style of a Scott Walker crooner and the grotesque disenchantment of Pulp (“Machiavelli's Room”), dabbles in James Bond-style atmospheres in the ambiguous “Autobiography Of Spy” and enters with greater conviction into the meshes of post-rock with the dense and tormented “You Can Film Me”.
“A Firmer Hand” is in every way the most complex and difficult album by a musician who is not afraid to get his hands dirty and give up the seduction of success. The unusual and troubled melancholy of the splendid “Juliet As Epiteth”, the trembling melody for piano, keyboards and voices of “Christopher St” and the visionary country-western ballad in electro-soul mode of “The Hard Won” are signs of a continuous creative evolution. Hamish Hawk's new album is the musician's most difficult project, in some ways also the least incisive, but without a doubt the most courageous and full of prospects for the future.
27/08/2024
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM