Magna Mater by The Hawk Messengers

The Hawk Messengers “Magna Mater” EP

Following up their 2021 “SCIFI-WIFI” mini-album, The Hawk Messengers have landed again with their “Magna Mater” EP, boasting a heavier density, a deeper gravity anchoring them into the High Desert’s shifting sands. While the experimental psych-blues of their debut carried the burden of apparitions, these three new songs mark a new muscular presence, fully fleshed with fists pounding.
Produced by David Catching (Queens of the Stone Age, Iggy Pop) at Joshua Tree’s world-famous Rancho De La Luna studios, The Hawk Messengers have unleashed a trio of hook-riddled dystopian anthems, a pitchfork of Earth-shackled battle hymns refusing to be denied.
“Phasing Fractals” begins with the band’s fourth member: the tape machine, their secret weapon of Ouija frequency, beeping and blooping into guitarist Jamie Hafler’s headbanging riff. “As we stand upon her throne/the sun is melting our biodome,” sings Cristie Carter, a call to arms of global warming flooding a bleak future until she reminds us “Look all around us now/there’s beauty, seek it out.”
Pitting rock n’ roll Gaia theory into our current political battlefield, “Earth Goddesses” is THM’s middle finger anthem. “As the guillotine comes down on your own/back off and leave us alone/my body, my business, my temple, my zone/get the fuck off,” sings Carter, with echoes of Mariska Veres (Shocking Blue) and Siouxie Sioux fronting an Anarcho-Punk Sabbath.
Finally, “The Art of Being” starts with free-jazz noise, into propulsion, before dropping the floor from beneath us. “Look down, see yourself/ghosting your own life force,” Carter wails, a warning of our astro-umbilical disconnect before she and Hafler harmonize us back into balance for the comedown, reckoning with an apocalyptic lullaby.

The answer lies within the shrill cry of a hawk. Not just any hawk, but the great observer. And in this cry holds almost two decades of Cristie Carter and Jamie Hafler musical pursuits, heartfelt messages of love & hate and astral trips through sound & composition. We can conclude that, obviously, this culmination of music and distinction could only be called, The Hawk Messengers.