Review: Hawk Eyes – Everything is Fine

Hawk Eyes - Everything is Fine

[avatar user=”Mosh” size=”50″ align=”left” /]Hawk Eyes were a band I first encountered opening for Ginger at the Glasgow G2. I wasn’t impressed. Some time later I saw them in a support slot with Andrew W.K. They were definitely a bit better, but still didn’t quite grab me.

Everything is Fine is the first time I’ve had a chance to listen to them “non-live” and gather a little background about them. They fall into the wide-ranging “alternative rock” category, with a mildly punky twang to the vocals and Everything is Fine serves up  dozen tracks that they’ve spent the last couple of years working on.

I’ve given it a couple of listens through and it’s not bad, but not brilliant. There’s a lot of good stuff there, but it just seems to fall short of really grabbing me.

For instance, “The Ballad of Michael McGlue” seems to be 2-and-a-half-minutes of build up for a climax that’s never reached. “More Than A Million” fares better, but when the song finally hits the part it’s been building towards, it’s just messy (around 2:40 through).

“Permission” is more like my kind of thing. It pulsates and drives forward, with some catchy riffage. “I Never Lose” similarly had me back for a couple more listens than other tracks, mainly due to the drum-work which gave it a nice head-pounding beat. The title track I found very schizophrenic – part of me liked it, part of me didn’t. Or perhaps I liked part of it and not the rest. I’m not sure.

Essentially, I’d say that Everything is Fine sums up the album. It’s… fine. It’s not brilliant, but it doesn’t suck. It’s, you know… fine, I guess.

The one thing I’ll say for Hawk Eyes is that they do have a fairly unique sound. If “Die Trying” below takes your fancy then the album’s probably worth you checking out, as is their forthcoming UK tour.

Everything is Fine comes out on February 9th

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