I managed to first catch Hat Fitz & Cara at The Charles Hotel during one of the Perth Blues Club Tuesday Night sessions and was totally hooked by their sound & performance. So, I have been looking forward to hearing what the dynamic husband and wife team from Queensland’s Sunshine Coast have been cooking up on their latest blues & roots offering, in the form of their 5th studio album, ‘Hand It Over’.
The album opens with ‘Step Up’ as Fitz eases us in with his electric magnatone guitar, with Cara joining with percussion & soulful vocals. This track sets the easy pace of this fantastic selection of songs on this release. ‘City Lights’ gives Fitzy the vocal reigns with some great underlying guitars and Cara’s harmonies. The soul feeling continues with one of my favourites on the album, ‘Hold On’, where once again Cara shows just where her vocal strengths can take her and it’s a track that has such a 60’s Joe Cocker type vibe to it. We pick the pace up with the shuffling blues of ‘Harbour Master’ and you just can’t help tapping your feet to this groove & blues number until we get a change of pace midway through, which works so well. We are taken back to the deep-south with Fitzy’s gospel & roots inspired guitar & vocal on ‘Trimmed & Burning’, yet again with Cara’s outstanding backing vocals. ‘ADHD’ once again gets everything tapping with another upbeat number, as Fitzy tells us he has “ADHD in my jeans”. The highlight of this album for me is the fantastic ‘Under Wing’ with Cara once again talking the lead, with such a smouldering bluesy feel that it could almost be straight from the stage of Woodstock itself. ‘Painters Guitar’ has Fitzy leading once more as he effortlessly takes us on a journey of chilled out acoustic guitars. The album closes with Cara’s soothing vocals drifting through ‘Unbound’ with Fitzy playing a 1920 Vega fretless banjo in the background. I really look forward to hearing how this material will transfer to the live stage too, as there is such a real nice feel to all of these tracks. I also like the way Fitz & Cara both share the lead vocals throughout, which makes the songs all feel very different. I will certainly be adding this one to my collection and investigating more into their back catalogue.
Cara says of the release, “Our intent on this album was to share as honestly as we can with our music what we do live, the high energy moments that bring us together in life and the sensitive lows that we sometimes hold to ourselves. Hopefully capturing what feels good to us musically will feel good to the people listening, whether it’s the first time they’ve heard us or if they’ve been fans for years.”
‘Hand It Over’ was recorded by award-winning producer Govinda Doyle (Angus and Julia Stone) and mastered by UK legend Graeme Durham (Grace Jones, Bob Marley, Black Uhuru, Kid Creole, U2, The Pogues).
‘Hand It Over’ is available from all good music outlets from January 29.
