A Firmer Hand, the third studio album (and fifth overall) by queer Scottish singer/songwriter Hamish Hawk, will be released on August 16 via Fierce Panda. The third and latest single, “Men Like Wire” is a song he notes is..."about men. Men I have and haven’t known, men I’ve seen, heard, loved and lost. Men I’ve seated next to at weddings, bus stops and dinner parties, on trains, beds and park benches. They’re all in there, for better, for worse.”
Landing somewhere between Talking Heads, Franz Ferdinand and the Pet Shop Boys, the album, as Hawk, 32, puts it, relies less than ever on the “raised eyebrow” to make its mark. A people pleaser by nature, he appears unwilling to gladhand this time around. Though his obsession with crafting the perfect couplet remains undimmed, and comes with an admirably high success rate, at times on A Firmer Hand there is a tendency to say more by saying less.
Hamish adds, “Writing this album, I opened up my closet, and a skeleton came out. The thing that links all of the songs is a sense of the unsaid, 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.”
A Firmer Hand was produced by Rod Jones of long running indie rock band Idlewild at Post Electric studios in Leith, with his band, largely recorded live in the studio. It follows 2023’s acclaimed album Angel Numbers.
After doing the UK festival circuit for a few weeks and in stores around home this summer, Hawk embarks on several UK/European tour opening stints for Travis in late August, September and December.
Track listing:
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
Photo by Simon Murphy/The Syn PR
George Paul
