Hamish Hawk’s new album A Firmer Hand linked by ‘a sense of the unsaid’

Hamish Hawk has joined So Recordings for his new album.

Hamish Hawk has confirmed the release of A Firmer Hand on August 16th.

Songs on the follow-up to 2021’s Heavy Elevator are linked by a ‘sense of the unsaid’ – the first example being Big Cat Tattoos, the track which also inspired the album’s title.

“Unknowingly I’d been building up an ugly arsenal of great unsaids over the past few years, and the album became a place I could offload them, and with any luck put them to rest,” Hawk said.

I tried to avoid cleaning things up at the time of writing, I cornered myself into a warts-and-all approach. But don’t be fooled, our hero gets a few barbs in nice and early, and lands a couple of clumsy jabs, but in the end we’re witness to nothing more than a petty diatribe. It’s embittered, unbecoming and wholly embarrassing. It does have a certain get-up-and-go, though.

“Whether out of guilt, shame, repression, embarrassment, coyness, whatever it might have been. I realised: I am going to say these things, and not all of them are going to make me look good. The album made so many demands, and I just gave myself over to it.”

“Once I’d given myself over to the idea, I thought, I have to stick to this. I can’t hide anything from it. I can’t clean it all up for consumption. It felt uncomfortable for me – and that’s exactly how it should feel. That’s a really strong position.”

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A Firmer Hand tracklist:

Juliet as Epithet
Machiavelli’s Room
Big Cat Tattoos
Nancy Dearest
Autobiography of Spy
You Can Film Me
Christopher St.
Men Like Wire
Questionable Hit
Disingenuous
Milk an Ending
The Hard Won