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May 02, 2024 By Mark Redfern Photography by Michaela Simpson

Scottish musician Hamish Hawk has announced a new album, A Firmer Hand, and shared its first single, “Big Cat Tattoos,” via a music video. A Firmer Hand is due out on August 16 via Fierce Panda. Check out the single below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover artwork, as well as Hawk’s upcoming tour dates.

Hawk had this to say about the new song in a press release: “‘Big Cat Tattoos’ is just one of the great unsaids that make up the new record, and it’s the birthplace of the album’s title: ‘A Firmer Hand.’ Unknowingly I’d been building up an ugly arsenal of great unsaids over the past few years, and the album became a place I could offload them, and with any luck put them to rest.

“I tried to avoid cleaning things up at the time of writing, I cornered myself into a warts-and-all approach. But don’t be fooled, ‘Big Cat Tattoos’ is all talk. Our hero gets a few barbs in nice and early, and lands a couple of clumsy jabs, but in the end we’re witness to nothing more than a petty diatribe. It’s embittered, unbecoming and wholly embarrassing. It does have a certain get-up-and-go, though.”

A Firmer Hand is the follow-up to 2023’s Angel Numbers.

Hawk had this to say about the album: “Writing this album, I opened up my closet, and a skeleton came out. The thing that links all of the songs is a sense of the unsaid, whether out of guilt, shame, repression, embarrassment, coyness, whatever it might have been. I realized: I am going to say these things, and not all of them are going to make me look good. The album made so many demands, and I just gave myself over to it.

“Once I’d given myself over to the idea, I thought, I have to stick to this. I can’t hide anything from it. I can’t clean it all up for consumption. It felt uncomfortable for me – and that’s exactly how it should feel. That’s a really strong position.”

Read our 2022 interview with Hamish Hawk.

Read our review of Angel Numbers.

A Firmer Hand Tracklist:

01. Juliet as Epithet
02. Machiavelli’s Room
03. Big Cat Tattoos
04. Nancy Dearest
05. Autobiography of Spy
06. You Can Film Me
07. Christopher St.
08. Men Like Wire
09. Questionable Hit
10. Disingenuous
11. Milk an Ending
12. The Hard Won

Hamish Hawk Tour Dates:05/04 - Edinburgh, UK @ Stag & Dagger Festival
05/05 - Glasgow, UK @ Stag & Dagger Festiva
05/27 - Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique (Solo w/ Villagers)
05/28 - Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso (Solo w/ Villagers)
05/29 - Rotterdam, NL @ LantarenVenster (Solo w/ Villagers)
05/30 - Hamburg, DE @ Christiankirche (Solo w/ Villagers)
06/01 - Berlin, DE @ Passionkirche (Solo w/ Villagers)
06/02 - Cologne, DE @ Luxor (Solo w/ Villagers)
06/03 - Paris, FR @ La Maroquinerie (Solo w/ Villagers)
06/05 - Newcastle, UK @ Wylam Brewery (Solo w/ Villagers)
06/06 - Leeds, UK @ Irish Centre (Solo w/ Villagers)
06/08 - London, UK @ Royal Festival Hall (Solo w/ Villagers)
06/27 - Inverness, UK @ Belladrum Festival
07/21 - Reading, UK @ Englefield Estate (w/ Elbow & Villagers)
08/04 - Barnsley, UK @ Underneath The Stars Festival
08/13 - Kingston on Thames, UK @ PRYZM
08/14 - Leeds, UK @ The Wardrobe
08/15 - Manchester, UK @ Night & Day
08/16 - Bristol, UK @ Rough Trade
08/17 - London, UK @ Rough Trade East
08/19 - Liverpool, UK @ Rough Trade
08/20 - Oxford, UK @ The Jericho Tavern
08/21 - Portsmouth, UK @ The Brewery
08/22 - Brighton, UK @ Resident
08/23 - Kettering, UK @ Green Belt Festival
08/24 - Birkenhead, UK @ Future Now Weekender

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