A Firmer Hand

A Firmer Hand is the third studio album by Scottish musician Hamish Hawk, released on 16 August 2024 by Fierce Panda and So Recordings. The album was written by Hawk, guitarist Andrew Pearson and drummer Stefan Maurice in 2022–2023. It was produced in Edinburgh by frequent collaborator and manager Rod Jones. Hawk designed the album artwork, alongside Stuart Ford, which features a black and white portrait of the singer with his face half obscured by a black shadow. Its title refers to a line from the song "Big Cat Tattoos" and highlights the defiant nature of the record. A Firmer Hand deviates sonically and thematically from Hawk's previous output and deals with darker subjects relating to sexuality. It features a wide array of genres that include sophisti-pop, post-punk and art rock, with influences from gothic rock, indie rock, new wave, synthwave and elements of funk. Instrumentally, it incorporates synthesisers, piano, bass, guitar and drums, eschewing the baroque sound of previous records, as the band wanted to recreate the studio sounds live without altering its line-up. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Firme...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)