Posted in Whathaveyou on October 20th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
In the spirit of late ’90s hip-hop, I’ll give mad props to Freedom Hawk for heading out on tour at a time when most acts — Clutch, Orange Goblin are prominent traditional exceptions — seem to go to ground for the winter. Their pre-holiday December stint comes in support of their new album, Take All You Can (review here), and, it should be noted, finds them living up to that mindset in terms of getting the most out of 2022 while they can. With two weeks of dates culminating Dec. 19 at Saint Vitus Bar in Brooklyn, Freedom Hawk follow the September record release with what’s bound to be a miserable stint weather-wise — climate change has turned early winter into a grey, was-already-dark, December wet season for much of the Northeast; certainly the part of it in which I reside — but one that nonetheless owns a moment that even in the post-covid surge of live activity throughout this year has gone largely unclaimed.
Noble purposes, in other words. I can very easily see trudging to Brooklyn to blow off some pre-holiday steam, and if the four-piece have any interest in adding a show amid the legal green of my beloved Garden State, I know a spot.
Dates as they are follow:
US EAST TOUR ’22 for new release Take All You Can released Sept 23 on Ripple Music. Check it out and jam with us and our friends!! Lets Rawk and Get Rad!!! ~FH~
Dec 06 – Raleigh, NC – Pour House Dec 07 – Atlanta, GA – Boggs Social Dec 08 – New Orleans, LA – Santos Bar Dec 09 – Austin, TX – The Lost Well Dec 10 – Arlington, TX – Division Brewing Dec 11 – TBC Dec 12 – Louisville, KY – Portal @ fifteenTwelve Dec 13 – Indianapolis, IN – Black Circle Brewing Dec 14 – Chicago, IL – Cobra Lounge Dec 15 – Detroit, MI – Sanctuary Dec 16 – Columbus, OH – Ace of Cups Dec 17 – Youngstown, OH – Westside Bowl Dec 18 – Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Necktie Dec 19 – Brooklyn, NY – St. Vitus
Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 2nd, 2022 by JJ Koczan
We’re less than a month out from the Sept. 23 release date of Freedom Hawk‘s new album, Take All You Can (review here), which will be the band’s second album through Ripple Music after 2018’s Beast Remains (review here). If you’re feeling like it’s been a long wait, I’m inclined to agree.
The circumstances of pressing times are what they are — ah, the means of production! — some delay makes sense, but having been recorded by guitarist Brendan O’Neill and with new material that’s been hanging around at least since lockdown hit, yeah, four years is long enough between Freedom Hawk records. I’ve reviewed the thing, but the band’s blend of straight-ahead, don’t-need-nothing-fancy structures, extra-fancy guitar antics hoisted from out of the NWOBHM, sand-hued groove — you’d call it desert but for the fact that they’re from a town with “beach” in the name — and the occasional touch of psychedelia for flavor is vital and it all seems to come together in the six-minute title-track, “Take All You Can.”
I remain curious as to the meaning behind the title here, or if not the meaning, at least the message. Is it advice? ‘Get what you can and get out?’ Is it a criticism of selfishness? Or maybe just the band telling their audience to dig deep into the songs on the album themselves and get as much as possible out of listening? Could be any, all, or other. I don’t know, and even if I had the chance to interview the band, asking “what does your album title mean?” is about as lame as questions get. Right up there with “who are your influences” and “who plays guitar,” as far as I’m concerned.
So, let’s accept the mystery together as we watch the video, which I think the PR wire refers to as “bold” in no small part because half the band — the guitar half; that’s T.R. Morton and the aforementioned O’Neill — are topless. Whatever the case, the trippy effects suit the song well, and like the material across the album itself, all the visual swirls and dissolves in the clip are rooted in a band-in-room performance. If you’d ask more of Freedom Hawk, you’ve missed the point.
Fresh reminder as we move into the beginning of year-end-list season this record and band are killer.
Enjoy:
Freedom Hawk, “Take All You Can” official video
New album “Take All You Can” Out September 23rd on Ripple Music
East Coast-based heavy rock torchbearers FREEDOM HAWK share a bold and trippy video for their new single “Take All You Can”, the title track of their upcoming sixth studio album on Ripple Music. Get pumped up on the proto-metal frenzy of “Take All You Can” now!
“Take All You Can” was recorded by Brendan O’Neill and the band, mixed by Ian Watts at The Magic Closet Studio and mastered by Chris Goosman at Baseline Audio Labs. It will be issued on various vinyl formats, CD and digital through Ripple Music.
[Click play above to stream the premiere of Freedom Hawk’s ‘Seize the Day’ from their new full-length Take All You Can. Album is out Sept. 23 on Ripple Music (Bandcamp preorder).]
Reliability be thy name. For over 15 years, Virginia Beach heavy rockers Freedom Hawk have dug into a style that has only become more their own with time, offering songcraft that’s straightforward in structure and almost invariably led by its two guitars, while also digging deeper into their own presentation of ideas and methods and remaining unflinchingly honest in their purposes. Such is to say, when guitarist/vocalist T.R. Morton opines, “We all need rock and roll,” in the love song of the same name, you believe he means it.
Take All You Can is the four-piece’s sixth long-player and second for Ripple Music behind 2018’s Beast Remains (review here), as well as their second with guitarist Brendan O’Neill, whose addition to the lineup has clearly resulted in some shifts in style, pushing an already-there penchant for NWOBHM-inspired heroics — recontextualized into driving fuzz, naturally — more to the forefront in songs like “Take All You Can,” the centerpiece “Never to Return” and the never-not-be-soloing (not quite but you get the point) “From the Inside Out,” while allowing the band to explore atmospheres and moods that feel new at the same time. To wit, the aforementioned “We All Need Rock and Roll” arrives with a mellow grunge strum and spacious lead overtop and unfurls itself in a not-inactive fashion — Mark Cave‘s bass and Lenny Hines‘ drums assure there’s never a sacrifice of groove — and it’s not until Hines starts on the cowbell that the band signals the shove to come. And the two guitars get together, raise a toast of what is presumably celebratory homemade mead, and reaffirm said universal need, but so much to their credit, they don’t abandon that opening progression.
To be clear, “Age of the Idiot” and “Take All You Can” open Take All You Can at a fervent clip. The lead cut brings raucous shove and vitality as one would hope, and the title-track behind it prefaces the ’80s metal swagger of “From the Inside Out.” The arrival of “We All Need Rock and Roll” likewise is a preface to the expansion of sound that follows “Never to Return” and “From the Inside Out,” as Take All You Can wraps its nine-song/45-minute run with the salvo of “Skies So Blue,” “Comin’ Home” and “Desert Song,” transitioning from the dead-ahead urgency of the centerpiece and “From the Inside Out,” unfolding at more of a middle pace across the build of “Skies So Blue” while bringing hooks instrumental as well as vocal and a groove that is neither staid nor wanting for motion, nestled right into the vibe and where it wants to be as the band so often are. “Comin’ Home” pushes further along similar lines while broadening the atmospheric side, finding a more tranquil place from which its verses emanate, and keeping even its chorus consistent with this spirit, somewhat melancholy but treating its declaration of the title-line as a point of victory if the guitars are anything to go by.
Cave‘s bassline under the soaring guitar makes it — credit to Ian Watts, also of Ape Machine, who mixed at The Magic Closet in Portland, Oregon (Chris Goosman at Baseline Audio in Michigan mastered) — but the shift is so smoothly done by the band that it’s easy to follow along into the mellower terrain, which even without the dead-giveaway clue of “Desert Song” gives some hint of Pacific Coast purveyors like Yawning Man or Brant Bjork while filtering those impulses through its own, be it the harder riff of the chorus or the solidity of the structure beneath the jam. Freedom Hawk have done more than dipped toe into this kind of mood during their years and across their six-to-date LPs, but for a band defined in no small part by a nothin’-too-fancy, rock-like-they-used-to-make heavy riff ethos, the movement between “Skies So Blue,” “Comin’ Home” and “Desert Song” comes through as particularly bold; the group’s reach revealed all the more on repeat listens.
Thinking further of the shifting dynamic within the band, it’s noteworthy that they recorded with O’Neill at the helm and input from everyone, rather than an outside engineer. Their 2021 single, “Liftoff” (premiered here), was perhaps a test of method and there’s no sacrifice of production quality for going fully DIY for the first time on a full-length outing. Rather, “Desert Song” arrives at the conclusion with a sweetly fuzzed-out pastoralism, the bass and drums with just an edge of East Coast shove as Freedom Hawk even at their most subdued have always maintained, and demonstrates plainly to the audience where it’s coming from and the outward ride it’s ready to take. It’s not rushed, but neither is it really slowed down, but it serves as further evidence of the band to do whatever they want around a four-plus minute runtime and make a song out of it.
And whether that song is “Age of the Idiot” — the socially conscious lines of which are a misdirection to some degree of Take All You Can‘s more personal aspects, as best as one can tell without the benefit of a lyric sheet — or “Never to Return” or “Desert Song,” the purpose is the same. Freedom Hawk have never wanted anything more than to write the best material they can, record the best versions of the songs they can, and play them in front of human beings as often as they can.
It’s a simple formula, and to look at “verse chorus verse solo verse chorus end,” that’s a simple formula too on its face. The depths Freedom Hawk bring to Take All You Can remind that just because something is accessible, that doesn’t mean it lacks personality or individualism. Longtime listeners will recognize much of what Take All You Can has to give, but those same listeners should likewise be aware of how the band has grown and are still growing as veterans, and as one of the American Eastern Seaboard’s most vital presences in heavy rock.
If you need rock and roll, as I’m told we all do, trust well that Freedom Hawk will be on hand to deliver. They certainly do in these tracks.
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 1st, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Virginian heavy rockers Freedom Hawk have announced a Sept. 23 release for their new album, Take All You Can, on Ripple Music. They’re streaming a video for the new single “Age of the Idiot” — which is deeply relatable as I type this on my phone while driving — as well, and it’s what fans might expect plus a bit of edge that feels like a perspective born of the times. Certainly the single would bear that out, at least.
Hopefully more to come, but before I crash this shitheel Chevy Malibu, which I’m pretty sure is unsafe at any speed, this from the PR wire:
Virginia Beach heavy rockers FREEDOM HAWK to issue new album “Take All You Can” this fall on Ripple Music; watch new video “Age of the Idiot” now!
Virginia Beach-based heavy rock stalwarts FREEDOM HAWK announce the release of their sixth studio album “Take All You Can” this September 23rd on Ripple Music. Watch their brand new video for “Age of the Idiot” right now!
The champions of the East Coast underground are back in top form with their sixth-full length this fall! Following the success of their 2018 Ripple Music debut, ‘Beast Remains’, FREEDOM HAWK have made the most of the pandemic by channeling all their creative energy into setting up their own recording and rehearsal space and writing this 9-track record. Armed with confidence, the foursome delivers their strongest and most heartfelt effort, brimming with the vibe and energy of a relaxed band in a comfortable setting pouring their hearts out in every beat and note.
Single available on all streaming platforms: https://lnk.to/freedomage
Says the band: “The world was and is in the need of love and the lyrics on this album convey this thought in a dark way. “Take All You Can” really expands into newer territory of tasty bluesy melodies, driving harmonies, and killer song structures that have hooks for days… We feel like it is our best stuff to date and we can’t wait for people to hear it worldwide!”
“Take All You Can” was recorded by Brendan O’Neill and the band, mixed by Ian Watts at The Magic Closet Studio in Portland, OR, and mastered by Chris Goosman at Baseline Audio Labs, Ann Arbor, MI. It will be issued on various vinyl formats, CD and digital through Ripple Music.
FREEDOM HAWK “Take All You Can” Out September 23rd on Ripple Music
TRACKLIST: 1. Age Of The Idiot 2. Take All You Can 3. We All Need Rock N’ Roll 4. Seize The Day 5. Never To Return 6. From The Inside Out 7. Skies So Blue 8. Comin’ Home 9. Desert Song
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 9th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Hasn’t been that long since we last heard from Freedom Hawk. The now-veteran Virginia Beach heavy rockers are issued their “Liftoff” single (premiered here) in Spring 2021, and to follow that up, they now bring word that their next full-length, Take All You Can, has been mixed, mastered, and turned in to Ripple Music for release hopefully later this year. The sooner the better.
Freedom Hawk‘s most recent long-player is 2018’s Beast Remains (review here), and they did a fair amount of touring to support it. Now that they’re ramping up toward the new release, they’ll be back out, with dates lined up for May that will take them north into Canada and eventually back around to an appearance at Desertfest New York (actually they’ll go farther south first, then loop back up), before closing things out in their hometown. I would expect more dates to come as the release gets nearer/confirmed.
And hell I’m looking forward to hearing this one. The very definition of reliable, these guys are.
From the PR wire:
FREEDOM HAWK – Take All You Can
It’s been a long time coming to announce that we have delivered the masters to Todd at Ripple Music for our 6th full length album: “Take All You Can”.
We are in the process of reviewing Vinyl test presses now. According to latest from Ripple looking at a September 2022 release.
Cover art was done for the album from our friend Matt Collins who happened to do our cover art for our first release in September of 2008 – Sunlight.
This is the track list for “Take All You Can”:
Side A – Age Of The Idiot Take All You Can We All Need Rock n’ Roll Seize The Day
Side B – Never To Return From The Inside Out Skies So Blue (Digital Only) Comin’ Home Desert Song
The album was recorded by the Band Mixed by Ian Watts – Magic Closet Studio, Portland, OR Mastered by Chris Gooseman – Baseline Audio Labs, Detroit, MI
We are also doing a few shows in US/CA in support of Planet of Zeus w/ Druids.
We have a show with our buds in Colossus this March then hitting the road for a few shows in Midwest/Northeast and Canada with Planet of Zeus and Druids in May! Also, playing the Desertfest NYC pre-party. Hope to see you there.
Tix now on sale!
2022 Spring Show/Tour Dates: Mar 25 – Richmond, VA – Cobra Cabana May 05 – Chicago, IL – Reggies Music Joint May 06 – Youngstown, OH – West Side Bowl May 07 – Toronto, ON – Bovine May 08 – Ottowa, ON – Dominion Tavern May 09 – Quebec, QC – La Source de la Martiniere May 10 – Providence, RI – Alchemy May 11 – Frederick, MD – Cafe 611 May 12 – Brooklyn, NY – St. Vitus / Desertfest May 13 – Virginia Beach, VA – Bunker
