All eyes are on him. He's wounded and wailing, but then he abruptly takes command; he quivers vulnerably, his voice warbling as his heart deflates, and then he roars his demands, like a lioness that follows orders without hiding her claws. Hawksley Workman assaults his songs with butch sexual charge, the camp and flamboyance of a junior league pop diva-- so much that, well, not to question anyone's identity, but he's gotta be, you know, British.
Workman actually hails from the less glamorous nation of Canada. In the strange, maybe made-up biography on his website, he writes that he's a country boy whose life changed when he moved to the city and took up residence in a dance studio. Working day and night to earn his keep and learn his art, he became a dancer who has held the Dutch Royal Family in his thrall. And after learning to sing and collecting some garish stage outfits, he took up a new career as a burgeoning international pop star, with three records under his belt: For Him and the Girls, a Christmas album called Almost a Full Moon, and now (Last Night We Were) The Delicious Wolves.
Far and away his greatest strength is his voice. Owing some influence to idols like Bowie or Freddie Mercury, his style has been compared to Britain's 70s glam pop age: his sexual energy encompasses and then tosses aside plain old macho cock-rock. Whether caterwauling through "You and Me and the Weather", moaning low like Robert Plant, or barking orders to an anonymous plaything in "Striptease", Workman not only possesses chrome-plated pipes, but the style to use them.
Workman recorded this album almost entirely by himself at home: that's him hammering out the tight piano part on "Jealous of Your Cigarette", or working the guitar like he's humping a pole. Ditching the folk and country tinge that colored his first album, the music goes from a rhythm-and-blues urgency to drawn-out almost schmaltzy musical theater. But even if Workman's putting just about everything he has into performing this music, the material he wrote can't keep up: it just jogs along while he's singing up a storm; and for someone who can spew purple prose-- he's even published a book of love letters, Hawksley Burns for Isadora-- the lyrics range from lurid and rambling, to obvious and dull. "I'm jealous of your cigarette/ And all the things you do with it," works as not-too-subtle camp, but later in the song he spells out the innuendo ("...and how you want to suck on it), and that's just gauche.
Although the singles that kick off the disc are almost lunkheadedly blunt, they still carry more charge than the later songs which, while smart and often catchy, are strangely defanged. "Clever Not Beautiful" is actually neither, running on seemingly forever; the piano ballad "Lethal and Young" tries to sum up the perils of youth, but ends up just waving a finger at them. Even though there are charming melodies on songs like "Your Beauty Must Be Rubbing Off"-- almost every track is well-honed and catchy-- Workman gets too cute and puckish; end-to-end the record grows cloying, losing the edge that the first few songs promised.
Where's that tension, the ambiguous charge that sends your neckhairs crawling? The album hints at something worthy of Workman's craftsmanship and charisma: something that aches more, or shows less, or doesn't sound so damn theatrical. As is, it doesn't dig deep enough into what drives him; is this erotic and raw, or is it just needily pawing at us?
