Will Hanco’s Storm Before The Calm is not a clean comeback statement. The six-track EP turns grief, isolation, bedroom production, and folk-rock detail into something that keeps moving forward.
Originally from Yorkshire and now based in Brighton, Hanco builds Storm Before The Calm from intricate fingerpicking, rhythmic guitar movement, close vocals, and an airy baritone with a subtle ’80s edge.
Written after his father’s sudden passing, Storm Before The Calm was built solo in Hanco’s bedroom studio. Close vocals, layered guitars, slide textures, ambient detail, and orchestral percussion give the EP weight without over-polish.
Outlier opens with driving percussion and expansive guitar movement, while Heaven Below pushes Hanco’s melodic instinct into a wider indie-folk frame. The result feels intimate, but not small.
Hanco explains:
This EP was written during a time where a lot in my life wasn’t certain. It came at a point where I felt disconnected from the outside world during my father’s passing, and I was trying to make sense of everything around me again, one day at a time. This EP was my only outlet in navigating how I was feeling, enabling me to reflect and put my next foot forward. It became an outlet for things I didn’t really know how to process at the time, and an honest body of work, and an important step forward.
That quote gives Storm Before The Calm its centre: loss, yes, but also continuation.
With BBC Introducing support and sync placements on Netflix’s Love Is Blind and BBC One’s The One Show, Hanco already has reach.
Here, he turns it inward: focused, self-produced, emotionally loaded, and built to hold.