In At The Deep End’s pedigree when it comes to unearthing and nurturing young British talent ought to be the envy of every label in the land. Not least with a band like History Of The Hawk.
Taking spiky pointers from the likes of Future Of The Left, History Of The Hawk bundle the sneer and spite of punk without trying to dampen it with softer, melodic edges. With distortion on the guitars at a bare minimum, it’s sometimes left to vocalist Nathan Coyle’s rasping vocals to give Future Ruins a leg up in the aggression stakes, but the bitter brevity of sub-minute offerings like Ex Wives keeps everything nice and punchy.
Indeed, it’s only on the out-of-character slow-brewed misery of Terraforming that the album feels the need to break the three-minute mark, relying instead on successive short stab’n’snarls to keep from sounding stale. This is scratchy and abrasive stuff. Stourbridge has never sounded so on edge.
