Stephan Folkes ‘Hazard’ - Where Grit Meets Grace in a Genreless Triumph
- Curious For Music Team
- Jul 7
- 1 min read
There’s a storm running through Hazard, and Stephan Folkes is the calm at its centre.
With his debut album, the East London multi-hyphenate crafts an urgent, emotionally charged odyssey that flips pain into power. It’s defiant. It’s thoughtful. And it’s gorgeously off-kilter.
Thematically, Folkes offers no easy answers. Tracks like Incomplete and Hazard confront emotional instability and personal boundaries head-on. This isn’t background music — it’s soul-baring testimony. What’s more, his genre-defying approach lets every feeling breathe: dream-pop ballads melt into funk-laced affirmations, cosmic R&B meets alt-rock intensity.
The production is tight, textured, and often cinematic. On It’s All Within Time, you feel suspended in orbit. On Say It Like You Mean It, you want to move — there’s swagger and substance in every beat. Even Undress Me, with its sensual overtones, carries an emotional weight that’s never cheapened.
What stands out most is the integrity. Folkes isn't selling an image. He's sharing a process — shaped by trauma, neurodivergence, and fierce self-determination. There’s power in that honesty. There’s also freedom — the kind that lets an artist walk away from formulas and craft something genuinely new.
In Hazard, Stephan Folkes isn’t just telling his story — he’s empowering others to tell theirs. And if this is just the beginning, the future of British alternative music is in damn good hands.
