A Hawk And A Hacksaw - Delivrance

It feels as if ‘Délivrance’ is the album that A Hawk and a Hacksaw have always been working towards. While their Balkan influences have been clear to hear for anyone with ears, previous albums have always paid homage to their experimental American indie roots, something to be appreciated and expected from Jeremy Barnes, formerly of Neutral Milk Hotel. While their collaboration with the Hun Hungar Ensemble was perhaps a step in the direction of ‘Délivrance’, it feels like a much more formal and orchestral affair than their latest, and perhaps greatest album to date.

On ‘Délivrance’, it becomes clear that the band is no longer anything other than the sum of their major influences. To describe this album is pretty much to describe traditional Balkan music, at least as far as uninitiated, western European ears can grasp: complex jangling rhythms give structure to a whole host of different instruments, which switch between playing in unison and taking turns at soloing, in an almost jazz style. The music sounds like a series of incredibly accomplished arrangements being played by a dusty roadside band providing tunes outside a carnival. Vocals are few and far between, so that when they are applied the effect is mesmerising. Barnes sounds like a drunken bar fly, who is down on his luck and has been given a few quid to front a band for a couple of songs.

The only currently in-vogue stylistic element to be found is the lo-fi recording on the introduction to ‘Raggle Taggle’; however, it's incredibly hard to believe that this could be a deliberate consensus to contemporary tastes, and its use is perfectly coupled with a melancholic violin, making the track stand out like a dusty old vinyl that the band found under a floorboard and decided to stick into the album.

In short, this album is something which sounds like nothing else in American indie music, and yet, perhaps paradoxically, it is a recording that everyone should love – not only for being different, but for being fantastically listenable, in almost any situation. Walking, partying, sleeping: ‘Délivrance’ is the all-purpose magnum opus for you, so buy it.

9/10