ALBUM REVIEW: Angel Numbers – Hamish Hawk
It’s said that angel numbers are a sign from the divine. Supposedly, you’ll spot a string of the same numbers on a licence plate, and that’s your kiss and a wink from the angels above. If repeating twos are symbolic of coming together, a message to open yourself more deeply to love and camaraderie, it’s apt Scottish singer-songwriter HAMISH HAWK has titled his sophomore album Angel Numbers.
Whereas 2021’s Heavy Elevator was a new beginning for a songwriter long in the tooth, Angel Numbers is a union of ideas. Few artists shake up a cocktail of ingredients as elegant as the incandescent indie-folk of FATHER JOHN MISTY and LANA DEL REY, the pulchritudinous poetry of LEONARD COHEN, and the sardonic majesty of THE SMITHS, yet the rock opera bombast of Think Of Us Kissing’s pianos and the stadium rock frolicking a la THE KILLERS found on Dog-Eared August pulls it off.
If ogres are like onions, then HAMISH HAWK is like the Earth. Littered with more layers than both, Angel Numbers isn’t an album to enjoy once; there are far too many audible nuances to unearth, and too many one-liners to lose your time tearing apart to simply listen just once. Like the layers of the Earth, Angel Numbers is a world within itself – take the slow dance shimmer of Bill, in which lo-fi legend Bill Callahan (SMOG) visits a dreaming Hawk to say “when you’ve spent too long staring at ‘money’”, self-referencing the snake-charming chamber-popper Money.
Angel Numbers is an education in pop culture for dummies. Once Upon An Acid Glance namechecks masters of melancholy LEONARD COHEN and KAREN CARPENTER; prime pompadour ELVIS PRESLEY and Ed Sullivan show up in the 60s on Elvis Lookalike Shadows; and elsewhere you’ll wage wars with Napoleon and find peace in the painter’s muse with Salvador and Gala Dali. If one rabbit hole wasn’t enough to run through, Angel Numbers is an exploration in a life lived; from the mundanity of mortgages to the magic of marriage, from the celebration of life to the existentialism of death. But for all its wit and wander, Hawk sums it up best in its opening line: “I haven’t the foggiest, faintest idea.”
Whilst Hawk might not have the foggiest about the meaning of life, he does however have a treasure trove of ideas to soundtrack it with. On Elvis Lookalike Shadows, shimmering electric guitars glide against the rising tide of his vocals, sending you into the stratosphere with a smile, whilst the organ-indulging, ANNA B. SAVAGE-featuring Frontman brings you back down to earth, tenderly tucking you into bed alone. Elsewhere, he toys with the weirdest ‘what if’ we’ve never asked but wish we had: what if THE BEAUTIFUL SOUTH went classic country? The duet is a serenade of honey-soaked dual-harmonies, as Hawk and SAMANTHA CRAIN delicately dance together.
Following Heavy Elevator is no easy feat; a conceptual ecosystem of cinematic caverns to get lost in exploring modern love and loss that is at once subtly sombre and brilliantly bombastic. Yet, on Angel Numbers, HAMISH HAWK carves the caverns into a kingdom of labyrinths; from the curtain-lifting strings of opener Once Upon An Acid Glance, over 45 minutes you’re presented a rich tapestry of chamber pop, indie-folk, and jangle-pop embellished with the kind of sardonic wit, new romanticism, and pop culture references that warm you up like a fresh pot of tea. The long and short of it is, Angel Numbers by HAMISH HAWK is a masterpiece made for the Mercury Prize.
Rating: 10/10
Angel Numbers is set for release on February 3rd via Post Electric.
Like HAMISH HAWK on Facebook.