Frankie Stew & Harvey Gunn: Nothing New Under the Sun - Album Review

Last year I had Frankie Stew & Harvey Gunn's last album Handle With Care in number 3 in my top 10 albums of 2021, so when I found out a new album for 2022 was dropping I was gassed.

Like their album Breathing Exercises, Nothing New Under the Sun starts very strongly with a similar type of track to the opener from Breathing Exercises, the title track has light female vocals and a vibrant beat with a piano instrumental with gentle but plucky acoustic guitar. The quality of Handle With Care gets picked up immediately. As expected, Frankie gives us that highly personal and reflective content, perhaps even more-so than the last album. On the opener Frankie discusses not seeing family enough as well as reminiscing on being a teenager - "I don't see my brother, think he hardly knows me, yeah it's sad and I'll take the blame for that, I was 15, just a kid who was major gassed". The chorus of "all these things that make me lose my focus" sounds like Frankie refocusing himself on his life as things may have become blurred in recent years from fame and pace-of-life.

Cats and Dogs has another simple, relaxing piano melody but the drums here are way skipper and feel a bit quicker, juxtaposing with Frankie's slower, plain flow which actually sounds refreshing. Kojey Radical comes in extremely comfortably and probably makes the song tbh. FS & HG always seem to get amazing feature verses, from Kofi Stone and Ocean Wisdom on the last to Kojey Radical and Finn Foxell on this one. I love Kojey's bar (and the subtle offside wordplay where he says "born and raised in H-O-X, marks the spot, marks the spot where they cut down flesh, I was offside tryna reach my goals, still outside when bro got kweffed".

Another single that came out before the album was Let the Light In, and another song that I was feeling down the tracklist. The hooks is a nice metaphor for opening up and using conversation as a therapy for improving mental health struggles. Of course, this is a hugely important topic that we have heard Frankie delve into before. This is beautiful, honest and open and awesome song. It is quite sad but there is hope within it, both in the beat and the lyrics which ultimately serve a positive message which encourages speaking out.

A couple tracks later we have The Middle which follows a similar formula to Cats and Dogs with Lex Amour coming through with a great feature verse. I was really feeling it, her voice is delicate and croaky as well as friendly and relatable and she rides the beat superbly.

Fatboys Cafe encapsulated much of the above and the album for the most part, especially in its instrumental, but also in Frankie's reminiscent verse - memories from I was a kid, football matches down the vic. For me, the most complete song is the following one, Don't Do Drugs. This track has a nice, catchy hook that is easy to rap along to and phenomenal verses from Frankie and Finn Foxell. Finn Foxell's verse was smooth as fuck, and the chorus mentioned did really well at breaking up the verses. The song has a nice upbeat atmosphere which made the feel unique on this record.

After Don't Do Drugs my enjoyment for the album slips with the next 4 tracks, especially the next 2. The tracks fine and typical FS & HG tracks, but that is probably where the problem is. Foundations and Bump in the Road felt like very much more-of-the-same for FS & HG without some of the sharp qualities of the earlier songs on the album. By the team Foundations and Bump in the Road come round I felt a bit of mental fatigue for the listen. Foundations has a plucky, slow guitar instrumental with dour verses and an uninspiring hook. When you've heard this in much of their recent work, with varying degrees of success (mostly sick though), it can get a bit tiring. Frankie addresses this in the lyrics themself when he mentions people asking him to make more "skippier" tunes. I'm not asking Frankie to do that, I just think these two songs didn't have the cutting-edge of quality that the others on the album did, and the style just became a little bit grating at that point. These two songs are duller and lack the spice of the other songs from the record have. Despite Bump in the Road having a slightly better chorus than Foundations. At this point of the album I was yearning for FS & HG to find more avenues to take their music down and give us a slightly more diverse collection of songs. Someone like Dave does this well, on this album We're All Alone in the Together has a myriad of different sounds and styles but also sounds like a complete tracklist where one song feeds into the other and the overall message of the album.

It does partly start to pick up again with Casino Royale where Frankie discusses gambling, which is not a common topic to discuss, despite it causing common issues. Frankie doesn't delve overly deep but does allude to his immaturity and not feeling like the responsible dad he thinks he should be. This is a good, respectable track that will be relatable for many people and is once again super reflective and honest. Parent Trap signals a feature I did not expect, but was not surprised. Featuring Everyone You Know this so much sounds like an Everyone You Know song. It's a sweet topic talking about parenthood and their relationships with their children. It is a solid track with a beautiful sentiment, but I would be keen on hearing maybe a garage collab between these two.

The last 2 tracks complete the recovery of the album that begun with Casino Royale and Parent Trap. Both of the final 2 tracks, Happiest I've Ever Been and In Pursuit have awesome, catchy hooks, but Frankie is bringing more hope, enthusiasm and gratitude in his lyrics and delivery. The closers of this album leave me happy, knowing that I listened to some good Hip Hop.

Overall, this is a more than solid album. They have a great formula that I thoroughly enjoyed. It will be interesting to see if they change it up at all in their next project which I would probably welcome. Maybe throw something different at us. Out of their last 3 now, it is so difficult to rank them because I love them all. You know what to expect from these guys, and if you like that, they rarely miss.

Art work opinions

Not that big on album cover, don't think it really catches the essence of the album.

Where would I listen to this

This album was most enjoyable through my headphones just walking or traveling about. Certainly would show pals some of these tracks, would be fine as background music also. It is a chilled out album but some of the tracks probably do have enough intensity that they could be enjoyed in the gym.

8/10

Star Track - Don't Do Drugs