HAWXX – The World Splits Open
HAWXX – The World Splits Open
Self Release
Release date: 26/06/26
Review by: Jon Deaux
8/10
HAWXX make the politics of all other bands seem about as superficial and disconnected as bumper stickers slapped on cars owned by no one and parked outside protests they’ve only passed by.
What is conviction? Well, most bands have convictions the way most people join a gym – they loudly declare their intentions, rarely use the facility, quietly quit by February, and memorialize their existence only via monthly bank withdrawals they feel too guilty to cancel. The band HAWXX has it the way a sledgehammer does when it’s already made its way through the factory window, the police are being called, and the person wielding it stands outside the court singing the song inspired by this experience, while their friend is listening from inside the court jail.
This is not a metaphor. This is track one.
‘Resistance Is Justified’ captures the arrest and subsequent imprisonment of The Filton 24, members of Palestine Action who have been incarcerated without a trial for well over a year on charges of destroying weapons in an Elbit Systems factory before they could be transported to Israel to commit genocide. Anna’s good friend, Jordan, is amongst them. Anna recorded and played the song for him over the phone while he sat in jail — either one of the most powerful acts of solidarity you’ll see this year or a testament to UK prisons’ unexpectedly robust mobile phone reception. The British government later classified Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, an impressive linguistic feat from an institution that clearly expended its vocabulary on the protesters and didn’t have anything left to describe the weaponry they destroyed. The first part of the song consists of repeated chanting of ‘free, free, Palestine’, followed by an unapologetic riff — typical for any protest band. However, HAWXX are more than a protest band, as most others are not quite protest bands either. They’re the kind of individuals who actually wrote a song about a movement that imprisoned one of their members — an act that not many ‘punk’ bands would ever undertake.
Anna sang this song in front of the courthouse outside which Jordan was kept. If you have never done something to risk your own freedom in solidarity with someone who was arrested for that cause, think about it before making a statement about staying true to your convictions on Instagram. It’s ok, I’ll wait here.
Anna Papadimitriou and Hannah Staphnill play the riffs that speak of telepathy acquired via years of joint rehearsal — or maybe simply sharing a mother’s womb. It is likely both, and both of them together make up the most irritatingly skilled guitar duo since the birth of this instrument itself. Their riffs possess a certain Gojira weight that tells you the band understands the importance of having political meaning backed by music — as opposed to writing a lengthy newsletter and forcing listeners to subscribe to that.
Once ‘Feral Mother’ reaches its climax, it does so in service of a story about a woman who spent one month wandering through the freezing marshes during nighttime, screaming and fighting foxes for laying out food she thought she was feeding to her cat, but the cat wasn’t hers. Moses, her own cat, disappeared from her narrowboat in London. Some people suggested to Anna that she see a ginger cat in Leyton Marshes, and she found one. She then stayed in there for a month at freezing temperatures trying to find it until, realising that the cat didn’t belong to her at all and never did, gave up in vain. Moses is still nowhere to be found today. HAWXX have thus made an album featuring an unresolved disappearance, and the audacity to make it track three — and make us realise we weren’t ready for this yet.
So here is your story. A month’s worth of freezing, fighting, and futile attempts to save one of the pets you care for most deeply. If this isn’t something most artists would avoid writing about due to the absence of an ending that’s satisfactory in its resolution, then HAWXX decided to give their all regardless and write an album featuring the most devastating guitar riffs — which tells you a lot about the way the band approaches suffering — namely, that it has ceased to be a convenient concept for them around the time they spent the third night of freezing in the marshes losing to foxes.
‘Macho Bullshit’ does exactly what it says on the tin, which is a tin overflowing with queer feminism rage, broken glass, and punk aesthetics that are sharp enough to wound anyone who happens to be nearby. HAWXX utilise precisely the aggression the song criticises in order to create a sense of structural irony that would have many other musicians try in interviews, but HAWXX achieve effortlessly, in the form of a chorus. This song has been written for those moments in life when telling a man to shut the fuck up becomes necessary, and HAWXX has kindly prepared their song so you wouldn’t have to search for any other ways to express your frustration with a man who can’t keep quiet.
Drummer Jessica Dann is classically jazz-trained, but at this point, she plays ridiculous time signature drum patterns for songs such as ‘Shriek’ and ‘Be That Whore’. The jazz training and punk metal techniques occupy opposite ends of the spectrum; most drummers respectfully ignore them from a considerable distance as a potential threat, similar to a live electric wire. Jess didn’t seem intimidated, and instead of acknowledging this danger in theory, he chose to take action and successfully combine the two. The result is precision percussion that makes chaos deliberate and, thus, impressively intimidating.
Anna’s vocals draw on her Greek heritage in a way that reminds you of Greek mythology as you listen to them — traditional vocalisation woven into fry screams, in a way that makes you wonder whether the banshee spirits, witchcraft, and Valkyries that run through Anna’s veins didn’t simply foresee the performance. On ‘Shriek’ — a song dedicated to haunting their landlord during nighttime for destroying nature in the process of maximising profit at all costs, which is the most niche revenge fantasy I’ve heard in my life or the only reasonable response to seeing the way Thames Water treats the environment — the vocals are not illustrative anymore. They prosecute. When Anna screams, the ground cries for vengeance.
‘Shriek’ is the track I was thinking of when coming up with “quiet gutpunch” as a description. Written about one of the darkest times in Anna’s life when she had to revisit that period to make this song, ‘Bind’ is a reminder of religious brainwashing and a tribute to overcoming one’s personal fears and inner demons — and the price paid for this process of catharsis. This is reflected in the production technique that allows Anna’s vulnerability to stay as raw as it was when she felt it in the first place. It may have made other artists cringe and rush to edit and hide any discomfort in the recording, but HAWXX didn’t bother.
‘Vextinction’ is about extinction grief expressed openly, and it features a sound as desolate as the experience it tries to recreate — watching the world being taken apart in the name of growth, as defined by a corporation, and completely distorted in meaning. ‘Sacred Water’ is an even more terrifying manifestation of this destruction, focused on Thames Water poisoning a particular river in Anna’s community with its waste. The song speaks of the grief of a lost relationship with water polluted and ruined for the corporate interests of those who have calculated that it’s cheaper to pay the fine than to fix the issue. This time, the song lands not as a stone in clear water, but rather, in filthy, toxic sewage that kills wildlife.
‘Arm the Animals’ imagines animals of various kinds — cattle, pigs, foxes, and birds — rebelling against the human beings hunting them for their personal enjoyment and entertainment. Depending on how closely you’ve been paying attention, it’s either a manifesto of animal rights or an apocalyptically-minded prediction that comes to fruition sooner or later. No matter what, the riff doesn’t wait for you to choose your side of the conflict. ‘Me and Her and All the Birds’ shows us a vision of queer love dissolving into nature — bodies becoming parts of trees, mouths becoming the entire moon, sins becoming honest currency. The tenderness with which this happens amidst the blast beats and screams that strip paint is striking because of the way it contrasts with the noise surrounding it, because the noise bled for it.
‘The Be that Whore’ closes the record on a rather provocative note, giving a new definition of a word that has been used against women for thousands of years. The whore is apocalypse, the whore is earth’s inheritance. The threat inherent in this term frightened the men who came up with it and failed to deal with it. The album ends when Anna sings the song, arching her back, and the world splits apart — not in conclusion, but as a beginning.
There are ten tracks on this album. There’s a mention of named people incarcerated in named prisons. There’s a reference to a river polluted by a specific sewage by a specific company. There’s a specific cat who is still missing to this day, and a specific landlord who should really consider the safety of his door. Motörhead influence and Karnivool structure as a load-bearing foundation rather than vintage clothes that you’ve bought from a shop, because it’s the only possible way for HAWXX influence to be felt.
Most bands release a record and wait for people to start feeling about it.
Track List
- Resistance Is Justified
- Macho Bullshit
- Feral Mother
- We Are Nature
- Arm The Animals
- Bind
- Sacred Water
- Shriek
- Me And Her And All The Birds
- Be That Whore
Links:
https://www.facebook.com/hawxxmusic
https://www.hawxx.co.uk/merch
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Jon Deaux and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
