A self-funded release, Dawn marks the next chapter in Eliza Hull’s exciting career. The EP is an especially raw and honest release sporting genuine promise.
The super-smooth Without Words saunters beautifully, its sultry rhythm simply hypnotic. Its emphatic chorus ensures it’s not only the best track on offer, but an obvious and viable choice of single. Meanwhile, a dash of drum and bass colours the outro of ache-laden track Saturation and the inclusion of Mark Pearl on Hold On makes for a nice surprise. It’s when Hull bravely strips back her approach, trusting simply in her expertise as a pianist for the likes of Falling and Lately, that the EP loses a little bit of its charm.
Dawn is an intimate album, satisfying and certainly ripe for replay on any icy winter evening. To embrace the EP outside of a seasonal context or a specific emotional climate, however, might prove difficult – the sheer weight of Hull’s introspection perhaps too much to handle. By her own admission, Dawn is an intensely personal album, honest to the end, and as a result, it’s riddled with angst, tension and an intense saturation of drama.
Hull’s music walks a fine line between yielding potent pop songs and overblown sob-stories. There’s sufficient evidence of the former throughout Dawn, but it’s important to note that the EP very much stays the course as an emotionally-heavy release overall.
BY NICK MASON
Best Track: Without Words
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: Meiko MEIKO, On A Clear Night MISSY HIGGINS
In A Word: Heavy
