British singer/songwriter Johnny Flynn has traveled a lot of ground in nearly decade of recording/producing albums. He's a man of many talents and varied interests and yet in "Heart Sunk Hank", the second single from upcoming fourth studio album Sillion, listeners learn there's deeper depths to explore. Flynn's music has always enraptured more by what he's singing and how The Sussex Wit sound than how they're recorded but "Heart Sunk Hank" with it's gramaphone-like tinniness shows that Flynn is willing to experiment with production a whole lot more than probably anyone's expected of him. Flynn's voice competes with lo-fi fuzz and twangy guitar lines. It's Flynn perhaps at his most performative - inhabiting the role of old school country singer a la Hank Williams and rewarding himself with applause when he reaches the song's end. And yet, Flynn's sincerity is unquestionable. It's the constant that grounds all of Flynn's poetic prose regardless of which styles he's tried on or what tales he's spun in the past and it's certainly true here. Flynn doesn't assume an affect outside of the production which oscillates in and out of clarity but very little, the listener immediately gets Flynn's intended effect in a way that's subtle enough not to distract from the song's other moving parts.
Johnny Flynn's forthcoming fourth studio album Sillion is out 3/24 on Transgressive Records.
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