On his fifth album as H.Hawkline, songwriter Huw Evans delivers a masterclass in subtly, craft and understated performance. His finest work yet and among our best albums in March .
Six years after Huw Evans released “I Romanticize” under the H. Hawkline name, he returns triumphantly with “Milk For Flowers” for Heavenly Recordings. Agony and elegance stare each other down across the record’s 10 tracks, with Evans’ distinctive voice remaining the star of the show. Evans’ voice is always in conversation with gorgeous, punctuated instrumental arrangements, generating music with multiple dazzling focal points that make “Milk For Flowers” a thoroughly engaging listen.
That said, the record’s vocal profundity is novel for Evans, reflecting a newfound lyrical urgency. Evans describes it succinctly: “I had to sing.” As sweet and shimmering as the saxophones are on a track like “Plastic Man,” Evans’ lyrics transform them into sirens of impending disaster as he demands “help me, help me, help me, help me.” Brass and keys are his preferred prisms through which to reflect his urgent emotions. They burn brightest on “Mostly,” a swaying meditation on mortality where Evans repeats, in falsetto, “I wanna die, I wanna die / I wanna die happy.”
On tracks like “I Need Him,” the subtle percussion, gentle keys and acoustic guitar generate a more subtle but excellently intimate atmosphere. “Milk For Flowers” is, without a doubt, H. Hawkline’s most vulnerable record, but his gently theatrical gestures and Le Bon’s measured production cultivate such an inviting atmosphere that it’s worth stepping out of yourself for those 46 glimmering minutes.
Produced with long-time collaborator and celebrated solo artist Cate Le Bon, “Milk For Flowers” is sad, but certainly not without hope. Many of the songs are fragile – and his voice throughout is just sublime in its vulnerability – but the album is entirely void of sentimentalism; plaintive and honest, some of the most enthralling we’ve heard in ages.
‘Milk For Flowers’ is the title track and first single from H. Hawkline’s new album.
The Fat Angel Sings 