In This City They Call You Love＜Transparent Blue Vinyl＞

Ten albums deep, Richard Hawley is practically his own genre, one steeped in the bittersweet romance and pub atmospheres of his hometown of Sheffield, England. Its a vibe hes explicitly conjured throughout his career and one he imbues with a cinematic poetry on 2024s In This City They Call You Love. Produced by Hawley with longtime collaborators Colin Elliot and Mark Sheridan, the album teeters eloquently between introspective folk, twangy roots pop, and bashing psych-rockabilly numbers. Musically, the album is a nice balance of the sounds and influences hes pursued throughout his career. We get Roy Orbisons stardust majesty on "Prism in Jeans" and "Hear That Whistle Blow," while "Heavy Rain" and "Ill Never Get Over You" have the intimate singer/songwriter poignancy of Richard Thompson. There are even a few sonically vibrant rockers here, including "Deep Space," where he evokes his early alt-rock roots as a member of Pulp and the Longpigs. That track also reveals the underlying existential threads running through many of his songs. A sci-fi rock & roll anthem for the planet, it finds him pleading for both solace and an end to environmental destruction. He sings "Well we dream of living on other worlds/Were a strung-out wing on a broken bird/We need space/Deep space." Then, on "Have Love," he invokes the Beatles, singing "You gotta have love, if you want to get love/You gotta give love, love, love, love, love." With In This City They Call You Love, Hawley has crafted yet another indelible ode to his hometown, an album of rock mantras that express universal truths, no matter where you live. ~ Matt Collar