Richard Hawley – Standing at the Sky’s Edge Soundtrack Review

Sheffield finds its footing on the capital city stage, and of course, it is Richard Hawley who guided the Steel City there. Who else could have done it? The Reytons? Unlikely. Hawley, for good or ill, has tied himself to the city and maintained consistency in referencing the place through his work time and time again. Standing at the Sky’s Edge, another cultural pop for Sheffield, made its way to the stage last year and has picked up Olivier Awards and the like since then. A soundtrack release was bound to follow – and thankfully is as up to scratch as the efforts Hawley put in during these adapted glory years. Stand at the Sky’s Edge and listen on in to an hour of covers from the brightest mind in Sheffield.  

Make no mistake, these are still Hawley songs through and through, but the stage presence gifted to these songs is a genuine and promising turn. As the Dawn Breaks serves as a welcome opening – a twinkling little number changed from the force and measured addictions found in the original recording. To compare this song to that album version gets us nowhere, Standing at the Sky’s Edge takes on different meanings. There is still stern personalisation in the mix, that much cannot be extracted from songs so personal, but the change of tone, the lighter touch and the flourish of these orchestral presentations, are a welcome turn of pace for those so intimately aware of the originals. Tremendous changes are made to weaker materials from Hawley, who sees the likes of Time Is and My Little Treasures presented with new and colourful flavour lacking from the guitar-heavy originals. 

Projecting voices loud enough to hit the back of a theatre leads to some louder-than-life moments. I’m Looking For Someone to Find Me and Tonight the Streets Are Ours have the wind knocked out of their sails through some patchy vocal work. Again, the issue for firm fans of Hawley may be those wanting to hear the man himself. Removed from the context of the stage and rattling the ear canals, this live cast recording is a fine work indeed, though the interplay and presumed story linking this order together is impossible to replicate through music alone. Instead, these are just covers of Hawley works featured in a stage show where the story unfolds.  

The working-class world has never been and possibly will never be as strongly, as consistently, explored in music as by Hawley. His tenderness and sincerity strike through in stage adaptations. It is a telling sign of his tremendous knack for writing that a stage show and orchestrations from Tom Deering can hold firm the messages and warmth of music written, in some cases, well over a decade ago. Plenty to enjoy here and the deeper cuts of Hawley’s work are given the big, booming treatment they so clearly deserve. Bits and pieces later in the record, the likes of Don’t Get Hung Up In Your Soul and title track Standing at the Sky’s Edge are real belters – truly triumphant and the core of this live recording. Nice enough stuff, though it does not quite capture the stage relevance and presence these songs should surely hold.