Hank are announcing their debut EP, ‘Twist Grip’ (out September 12th on Dalliance Recordings). Following on from their first instalment ‘Angel Says’ with the release of ‘DYLM’; an acronym for ‘Do You Love Me?’. Continuing on with some of the post-punk, noise rock elements of ‘Angel Says’, Hank have shown their sound to be diverse and developing; through the much-adored medium of a break-up song.
Rather than the soft, delicate music that can often accompany heartbreak songs, the heavier side of Hank’s sound captures the emotions of heartbreak, loss and grief that are less explored in this style of music, for heartbreak is not all silence. It is not merely staring out of windows whilst peering inwards; watching the reels of memories gone-past. It can be a scream, an internal shout; raging against that which has been lost and may never return, those experiences that fundamentally change who we are, as people.
However, there is a softness present, a welcoming awkwardness that Hank invites us to share – something theY are able to naturally capture in their live shows – to acknowledge the universality of these experiences, the honesty available in our shared delusions and insanities in questioning another’s’ perceptions of us and the subsequent emotional responses. Arising questions of who we are post-relationship, how we can once again look upon our own reflection without seeing their inhibiting gaze. We were, as poignantly declared in the lyrics of Hank, “tied to how you see me”, now we must conjure up new notions of self, recreate ourselves again, born anew without the masks we once were openly forced through love to adorn.
An effective silence occurs, a reverb that fuzzes out, flickering then dying – the song changes, here time to process is found, the time of healing occurs. Yet, recovery from heartbreak cannot occur solely through time passed. The repetition of the chorus emulates that constant questioning we have, the retuning intrusions, the internal spiralling of solitary confinement – we ask the mirror to no avail. Here, writing a song is the process which itself dictates how we can endure, offer answers that previously we could not grasp. A process of self-realising through the act of creation itself.
Paired with a natural music video by Beth Boswell-Knight, through the personal nature of the location and the events that occurred, Hank are able to delicately and earnestly evoke the experiences of an ending of a relationship; a heartbreak. Those endless evenings of window-watching, the questioning of a relationship and the future are brought into existence through the tone of the music itself, the silence of the heartbreak, the visceral crashing of reflection. Stay in tune with Hank.
Photo by Beth Boswell-Knight
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