4Q - Hand Eye

4Q

​Hand Eye
self-released; 2022

By Jamie Funk
​

School friends Steven Bosley and Dave Brown reconnected with each other to form 4Q. a few years ago after losing touch. The creative process almost started by accident but the major obstacle was that they lived almost 6,000 miles apart - in Bangkok, Thailand and Stoke-on-Trent, England respectively. The songs were constructed using basic software, hundreds of emails and lots of patience. After more than two years the result is Hand Eye. It’s a rock based album that contains twelve songs.

The first song is entitled “I Know, You Know” and revolves around fuzzy power chords, drums and almost an indistinct sounding bass. It’s a straightforward tune with a verse/chorus/verse type of structure. The vocalist sings “Our love will see it through I know you know / My love will take you to I know you know.”

“How Was I To Know?” is a sort of ballad and has some nice moments and reminded me of The Beatles. That being said, the song is very lo-fi. “Demons” sounds like it might be a different singer doing the lead. I was getting ’80s and '90s flavor with this song.

“Being Together” was a solid song and features a female singer. It revolves around jangly guitar chords and a discombobulated drum beat. The song sounded out of time but perhaps that was the intent.

“Life Is A Terrible Thing” might sound negative but it’s one of the arguable highlights in the batch with a driving rock n’ roll flavor. Somewhat ironically the next song is “You Only Live Once.” The timing with this song is all over the place. My brain was constantly trying to catch up with what was happening.

“You're Not The One” has a folk inspired rock flavor while “Crime Of The Heart” is a grunge inspired ’90s tune. “Son Of A Gun (S.O.A.G.)” is one of the highlights and also the closer. The groove on this song is locked and the mixing is also some of the best you will hear on this release.

As a producer and engineer myself there were a couple technical issues. There often wasn’t as much separation as I wanted with the instrumentation and on some of the songs the vocals were on top of the mix. Throughout the album the drums were often too busy and didn’t always sound locked in. 

​That being said the band's strength is the songwriting. I appreciated the lyrics and felt the songs often came from the heart. It’s not easy to collaborate remotely but I would say they pulled off a solid release. Take a listen.

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