ALBUM REVIEW: Hawkbill - "Self Titled"

By: Grim Trashcan

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released:23/03/2017

Label: Independent

Track by track these rusted broke-down tractor boys weave a landscape that is reminiscent of the groovier parts of Grief or perhaps an even more slowed down and swampy take on some Weedeater.   With a natural emphasis on groove and natural timing and feel, this album moves like a sloth with a spliff in its mouth.

“Self Titled” DD track listing:

1). Blackened

2). Fever

3). Hate

4). Snakes

5). Knives

The Review:

A simple internet search on "Manchester, KYdemographics" reveals the catalyst in order to produce such a suffocated and frustrated brand of Southern sludge from the gloom merchants that go by Hawkbill. According to the County's facebook page; under sightseeing- one of the main attractions next to the Baptist Church is the Clay County Correctional Facility. Charming, wouldn't you agree? Become a pill-billy, praise Jesus or do what these fine young Southern Gentlemen did- channel your frustration and despair into a trance-inducing, hypnotic groove anti-hymnal for the dejected. 

Track by track these rusted broke-down tractor boys weave a landscape that is reminiscent of the groovier parts of Grief or perhaps an even more slowed down and swampy take on some Weedeater, with a natural emphasis on groove and natural timing and feel. I've always been a proponent that if it's from the South, it moves like a sloth with a spliff in its mouth. With track titles such as "Blackened", "Hate", "Snakes" and my personal favorite "Knives"...this stoned sloth has been left out in the rain for a week and ran into some train-hopping crust kids and is babbling incoherently about the vicious nature of a Clay County existence. The abstract, albeit psychotic metaphor of that last sentence may be an indicator of where this band's first self-recorded and produced effort puts you after a listen or two. 

Inspired guitar work, precise and tactful rhythms carried upon the rhinoceros that lives in the low-end via bass are drizzled and poured all over by psychotic and tortured howls that drip and melt all over the aural landscape. Imagine a stack of pancakes, made of solid hash and then pour a heroic dose level of some kind of maple syrup mind-fuck mushroom concoction that some mountain wizard bartered for with some ammunition a few years ago and that's what you're getting into with this Hawkbillendeavor. No...ManchesterI will not be stopping by to see your highlighted social media suggestions anytime soon. I'd rather admire what social quagmires and abject level poverty have produced from your denizens from a safe viewing and especially listening distance. Hat's off to Hawkbill. Grim Trashcan definitely approved!!!

“Hawkbill” is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook