Carly Hann offers an underwhelming debut on ‘Alone’
Ethereal newcomer Carly Hann has released the first single off her upcoming debut EP with Dirty Hit, Alone.
Fans of The 1975 will already be familiar with Hann, her vocals prominently swirling around their ‘About You’ hit and performing on stage at their mammoth Glastonbury Festival and Madison Square Garden shows.
Such a jump into The 1975’s deep end has allegedly prompted Hann to pursue a musical path unexpected even to the singer herself.
Recruiting The 1975 guitarist and husband, Adam Hann, for shared production duties, ‘Alone’ seeks to bottle some of ‘About You’ oceanic contemplation, anchored by a gentle acoustic strum and Hann’s plaintive vocals cooing a lyrical wander of life’s ruminative pangs that echo around the fortress of our own isolation.
Such themes are artfully sketched out with the right level of austere intrigue, lines like “Fightin’ all the time / Battleground’s my head / The losing side lays down / So I lay in bed” managing to wring an undeniable pertinence for such concise, lyrical flashes.
Wrapped around Hann’s terse poetry is an unfortunate sag of ambient dither and shapeless soundscapes that float and bob too listlessly to ever glean anything effective, however.
The guitar traipses aimlessly, the mood forever circling in the same blunted fatigue, and the sonic production lacking any defined finesse.
The Mazzy Star enchantment Hann’s gunning for just never touches that celestial, spine-tingling stir, too trapped in its staid, grey fug to garner that intimate epic ‘Alone’ teases.
Some rousing drums enter the affair mid-way, and a glittering shards of synths weave and flicker at points, but, despite the Hanns’ best efforts, ‘Alone’s one-note soundtrack just doesn’t serve the evocative lyrics any justice whatsoever.
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