Album Review : A Hawk and a Hacksaw - Délivrance
- Written by Sean Clothier
With their last two records, A Hawk and a Hacksaw provided two different approaches. There was the more-or-less pop approach with added gypsy instruments and melismatic howling of The Way the Wind Blows' opener 'In the River' and then the full blown Hungarian folk rattlings of the admittedly descriptive but rather awkwardly titled A Hawk and a Hacksaw and the Hun Hangár Ensemble. So what did the best band from Athens, Georgia who are actually from New Mexico do? They did the right and proper thing and combined them.
Délivrance manages to blend the two sides rather effectively, especially on tracks like the dulcimer-led 'Kertész', which, from certain chord progressions and the vocal line manages to sound clearly Western yet with a musical accompaniment written to chase pigs around a Romanian hillside to. There is also a variety of material which was possibly lacking from ... and the Hun Hangár Ensemble, with the frequent pig-chasing songs broken up by excellent atmospheric pieces like 'Vasalisa Carries a Flaming Skull Through the Forest' which manages to live up to, and indeed actually sound like, its brilliant title. Indeed, the restrained nature of 'Vasalisa' is all the more refreshing after a great number of tracks with a "let's just throw all the gypsy instruments we can at it" approach, and it manages to be the most memorable track on the entire collection.
And that point touches on a few criticisms I would raise of Délivrance. While providing more sonic diversity than their previous diversity, the constant onrush of the songs can sometimes end up blurring individual pieces together into one giant musical gulyás (yes I used the original Hungarian spelling of goulash, what are you gonna do about it? I just like getting accents in), leaving the listener unable to tell their Zibiciu from their Lassú (yes! Another one!). It also perhaps suffers from being so well-connected to its folk traditions that it remains unlikely to appeal to a large section of the general music consuming populace in a way that, say, Beirut do. Whether that's a bad thing or not is really up to you, unattractive reader (I'm joking, you look very unique), but my personal taste is perhaps too connected to the Western pop traditions that belched me out and left me unable to remain cool in front of girls in clubs if they play songs that I like, and I sometimes end up yearning to hear a more crossover gypsypop work from A Hawk and a Hacksaw.
Still, Délivrance is a very assured work, and easily surpasses anything else in the bands always-bigger-than-I-remember back catalogue in terms of instrumental prowess and sheer enjoyment factor. It seems that A Hawk and a Hacksaw are definitely putting up a good fight to reclaim the coveted "Best Band with a Shakespearian Name" award back from Titus Andronicus. Come on guys, time for a collaboration?