Daring, daunting and, yes, disingenuous, but darn good for all that. Hamish Hawk takes a firmer hand.

Release Date: 16th August 2024

Label: SO Recordings

Format: CD / vinyl / cassette / digital

Hear that? The sound of crumbling prejudices. Mine, and my bad, as, with mouth full of words and soon to be swallowed pride, this album is a belter and Hawk is my new king. Nah, not my bag, I had said. Give it a listen, said they, now glad and grateful I did. So, let’s set out the table.

Hamish Hawk has been around music for a decade. First as Hamish James Hawk, and then as Hamish Hawk and the New Outfit, it was only this decade he really hit his idiosyncratic stride, this release making a run of three since 2021. The fact that Kenny Anderson (aka King Creosote) and Rod Jones, of Idlewild, were champions, should have been a clue. That he took part in two shows at this year’s Celtic Connections, another, in the Roaming Roots celebration of Scottish song, and the Scotland Sings Bacharach showcases, each sufficiently bolstering his position, by February able to sell out Barrowlands Ballroom, in Glasgow.

arch or acerbic?

Hawk has a way with words often described as arch, or acerbic. This often conjures up ideas of look at me cleverness, with the presentation, instrumentally and vocally, secondary to wordplay. From the start, Juliet As Epithet, this thought is imploded, as the brooding opening matches perfectly his dark and warm baritone, the words, initially, superfluous. But, oh, when they do rise up to the surface, what words! “He said, ‘Death-wise, I wanna be cremated, I said, ‘That sounds like something like the Ramones,'” revealing a wily wit.

Indeed, this review, already, could become a swamp of italics, which I will endeavour to resist. With the words all cradled in a juddery shudder of gothic keyboards and guitar, with the clip cloppy rhythm of coconuts, it is short and engrossing. Piano and a thud of drums then ushers in Machiavelli’s Room, a second tale of what the publicity describes as his relationship with men; friends, lovers, family and colleagues. A less inhibited version of, in equal parts Morrissey, Marc Almond, and John Grant, and with the spiky turn of phrase of The Divine Comedy’s Neal Hannon, the layers of detail are almost immaterial, the broth of voice and sounds, each sufficient alone to impress.

The band of Andrew Pearson, guitars, Alex Duthie, bass, John Cashman, keyboards, and Stefan Maurice, drums, and additional keyboards, add further flourish to Big Cat Tattoos, another jaunty travelogue around the dives of, possibly, Edinburgh, painting a picture that perhaps Tom of Finland might recognise: “I think you’d prefer a firmer hand, with big cat tattoos and a wedding band“. Yes, yes, we get the picture, and it is all framed in a structure that might well fit the mood when Bowie went New Romantic, Ashes To Ashes and all that. Nancy Dearest is closer to the Smiths template, but with a rich depth beyond Morrissey’s range, and more 80’s production tricks.

morricone in leather chaps

Autobiography Of Spy, with references to a Rufus, the temptation might be to speculate, but it is maybe a more Shakespearean analogy, or even just the contrivance of metre and rhyme. Notwithstanding, it is another absorbing visual soundscape of an interesting life, with, this time, the melody the sort of electronic excursion taken by mid to late period Leonard Cohen. (Although, if so, I’m Your Man would need quite a revision of content.) Remaining transfixed, near half way in this record, quite how Hawk has made such an impression with earlier work is now apparent, and how this, a more cohesive band record, can only brighten further his star. I can’t say for sure how my Auntie Betty, from Elgin, might take to You Can Film Me, track six, with it’s opening “Driving in drag down the Moray Coast“, but I hope she’d appreciate the beat, guitars a twanging and a slashing, Morricone in leather chaps.

Christopher St., at barely a minute and a half, is one of the sweeter moments here, just voice and piano, a softer side, fauxchestration sweeping in to savour further this contrasting aspect. What feels like a longer than usual pause, to weigh it all in, is followed by the rentabilly bluster of Men Like Wire, again showing Morrissey how to do it. For me, this has the strongest imagery on the record, daunting in the unselfconscious honesty of it all. Tremendous, and maybe then needing the bittersweet candour of A Questionable Hit to follow it. This is hit as in record, rather than any Goffin/King 1962 kiss, and possibly represents conversation with a critic, or is about an unscrupulous manager. “If they think you’re a fruit, the men won’t want to be you.”

a sleight of charm

Disingenuous, apart from being one of my favourite words, is the title of possibly the album’s highlight, a lumbering swagger that, of all people, Hawk channelling the spirit of Julian Cope, just before his teardrop exploded. It smacks of chart topper, were this 1981, the spidery guitar as, sorry, disingenuous as the verse, the lyric sheet not always quite how it sounds or you expect: “Them’s the brakes, watch me crash land……”

Milk An Ending follows, a bad decision enshrined in song, that manages to convey the gap between yes and no perfectly, even if too late, to a walking bass line, and shards of unforgiving guitar, with a cascade of fairground organ all of a deceptive shimmer. It also features a pun/play on words that really should bring about a wince, yet skirts any overt crudity with a sleight of charm that is both convincing, and fully in on it.

To close, Hawk returns to the electro-pop of the 80’s, with The Hard Won, don’t, redolent of Duran Duran in their prime, if with a better singer. Or, at least, one less excitable, his vocals here quite subdued and at their rich smoothest. Pearson’s whammy bar is in constant use. Along with Disingenuous and Christopher St., it provides a memorable earworm to leave the album with, reverberating in your head for quite some time after.

I don’t know if I painted this all quite as I heard it, mindful some of the recorded content possibly screams parental guidance. Or may frighten off those who don’t know their phobes from their philes. That would be a shame, as it has a lot to say, to who or whatever you are, and thus transcends the labels other might wish to apply. Produced by Rod Jones (Idlewild), the sonic heft is every bit as resounding as the fury of the lyrical thrusts, and it is recommended.

Here is the first single released, Big Cat Tattoos:

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