The Hawkins – Aftermath
Release Date: 3rd September 2021
Label: The Sign Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Rock N’ Roll
FFO: The Hives, Royal Republic, GoldMinds.
Review By: Paul Franklin
Back in January Swedish garage rockers The Hawkins released the sublime Live in the Woods. I reviewed it (https://www.metalepidemic.com/the-hawkins-live-in-the-woods/) and it was the first time I have awarded maximum marks, and several months later is still in strong contention for my album of the year. So, when I heard that they were releasing new music, to say I was excited as a (insert your own simile along the lines of pig in shit, etc.) would have been a huge understatement.
However when the first single, Svääng, was released I was a little bit taken aback.
This is not what I was expecting. Weird offbeat melodies and high shrieky vocals. Not sure about this. Things didn’t improve when I got the press release for Aftermath, amongst the usual biographical information the phrases ‘experimental’ and ‘conceptual mini-album’ leapt from the page to deliver my excitement a swift kick in the testicles. All too often ‘experimental’ and ‘conceptual’ are euphemisms for the artist’s own egotistical self-indulgence at the expense of an enjoyable listening experience for the rest of us. Especially as The Hawkins have chosen to go dark with the concept for this 6-track mini album, dealing as it does with the destructive aftermath of tattered relationships.
It was therefore with an impending sense of disappointment that I pressed play. Twenty-two minutes later it was all over. I pressed play again. Another twenty-two minutes passed and as the last notes of Aftermath (the final instrumental track) ended I felt completely different. There was no disappointment, in fact the opposite. The delightful feeling that all previous worries and concerns have been completely unfounded.
Blending their signature garage rock and dark humour with a variety of musical styles from bubblegum pop and punk to jazz and swing, the band address all the familiar stages that define the end of a relationship. Denial, anger and self-hatred, bargaining and begging, depression and finally acceptance and moving on. The brilliance comes from the way the songs have been layered with an almost schizophrenic energy that you feel in every note. They crackle with an underlying sense of angst and resentment just barely being kept in check. The tension being that at any minute the seemingly happy façade will shatter and there will either be floods of inconsolable tears or screams of primal rage.
Penultimate track Cut Me Off Right being the perfect example of the later, where having wallowed in the darkest corner of depression and self-pity, it thrusts a twisted middle finger in the air and bitterly spits out a gut full of bile along with the desperate and unanswerable question “Why can’t you feel like I feel?”
The Hawkins have tried something different. I was skeptical at the start, but I am thrilled to say I was wrong. This is superb.
(4.5 / 5)
