Years ago, I noticed that it was customary in professional music journalism to spend the first half of an album review mulling over the artist’s career thus far. Due to my being a contrarian prick, I’ve since tried to avoid such cheap padding techniques. This self-defeating attitude has, as you may have noticed, led me to not review many albums. Well, this release is different, so I shall swallow my contrarian pride and begin things as a professional, which I most certainly am not, would.
Emerging during the post-punk revival movement of the mid-2000s, along with such juggernauts as Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys, Hard-fi had the novel mission statement of wanting to make rock music that “girls could dance to”. I myself have an aversion to dance, as one might have an aversion to a double-decker bus heading straight for them. However, I would be tempted to try out an indie disco, as I have been known to throw shapes quite heartily at rock concerts. At a Hives gig in 2005, it has been rumoured that I did some serious pogoing and even had my shirt unbuttoned.
All the way.
A couple of years later, I found myself at a Hard-Fi show on Charing Cross Road, which, due to my worsening alcoholism, I don’t remember a great deal. I did have a jolly good time, though, and even had my arse grabbed. That I am sure of. The gig was in support of the band’s second and arguably best album, Once Upon a Time in the West. Those first two releases, stripped-down indie beats with a heavy coating of 2 tone ska, was perfect for a budding musician such as myself. Hard-Fi made you believe that you could do it too. I didn’t in the end, but the dream is still mildly-alive.
After OUaTitW came Killer Sounds, where the band put down their low-fi humility and layered over their sound a thick, glossy, sumptuous production. Like the same year’s Euphoric Heartbreak by Glasvegas, Killer Sounds could be described as a “cocaine album”. That’s not to imply that drugs were present in the studio, but just that the band had bitten off more that they could sonically chew, forgetting what was so great about their raw energy in the first place. Even the singer’s vocals felt thin and raspy. The album sounds like one nightmarishly out of control party, fuelled by a desire to impress and have more and more and more fun, at any cost.
Listening back to that album now, it has either aged really well or I have just become more tolerant towards a wall of sound pop aesthetic, which I certainly believe I have. But whether or not I liked the album at the time had nothing to do with the guitarist finding himself unable to continue. Then, in a show of admirable solidarity, the rest of the band refused to go on without him. The years following their apparent breakup were actually pretty sad ones, even though my own circumstances and mental state had vastly improved. I don’t want to say my drinking had improved, but I was no longer in the position where it would cause a problem.
13 years later…
All that daily checking for updates regarding the band finally paid off! I even got an anonymous mention in their Wikipedia entry, being the person who quizzed them on Twitter about the status of their hiatus. Oh golly, I’m rhyming again. My account and proof of my identity is long gone, but I’m secretly, or not so secretly, chuffed that I’m in there. I feel like a princess! Anyway, suddenly, a new single popped up on Spotify’s weekly release playlist, to which I reacted by squeezing like a very excited mouse indeed. Was this a one off?! A charity thing? A belated send-off, as per The Stone Roses? Nope, it seemed an EP was imminent, with, I assume, an LP to follow.
I have no proof that they’re going to release an album, but it sounded like they had one “in the can” before their hiatus kept being extended. Who knows if those recordings, like Supergrass’ Release the Drones and Goodbooks’ sophomore effort, will ever see the light of day.
So, here we are, 2024 and four original songs and three remixes has dropped. The band members look greyer and balder in their official photographs, as do I, but their sound is timeless. Unlike their aforementioned Arctic Monkeys peers, Hard-Fi chose not to stop writing about what drove them originally: uncompromising attacks on the mundanity of being a white, middle-class suburbanite. While not the most romantic of subject matters, at least it’s one they probably haven’t grown out of. Did they go back to office temping during their hiatus? I can’t imagine they left with that much money in the bank. But, whatever they have going on in their personal lives, the lyrics on their comeback EP are Hard-Fi through and through.
The first line of the first track, the titular “Don’t Go Making Plans”, echoes “Cash Machine” from their first album, Stars of CCTV, with the line: “All my money keeps walking out the door”. Apparently, signing a record deal is a one-way ticket to instant debt. You don’t work for the label, the label works for you. And they want paying at some point. I don’t know if that’s what they’re singing about, but I thought I’d sound like a smart-arse by making this observation. Perhaps their label was the major contributing factor in their hiatus, which does happen in the industry. The song has a reassuringly back-to-basics production, with only the faintest hint of filling out the stereo pan with more than just the four main band members. There are keyboards and trumpets and sound effects, but they don’t intrude as they would have on Killer Sounds. This is about the song and not the lavish recording budget.
“I Know What You Want” comes across as a ballad for the band’s guitarist and whatever issues led him to want to originally quit. The lyrical themes revolve around the drudgery of obligation and how success doesn’t always turn out how you hoped. If I am correct about the subject matter, then it’s rather apt, as the lead guitar part is truly a standout on this track. I would call it my “dream tone”, which appears to be played on a semi-hollow with minimal distortion. Just a beautifully deep, woody tone, as if the notes were hewn from the very tree the guitar was carved out of.
Oh yes.
While “Don’t Need You” is a petulant teenage breakup song, reminiscent of Star of CCTV’s “Better Do Better”, it’s buoyed by an upbeat bass lick that forms the EPs second stroke of instrumental genius. Again, the bells and whistles from Killer Sounds have been safely locked away in the rainy day cupboard at Cherry Lips Studio, and moments like this create a sense of triumph, rather than exhaustion.
And so we end with a hopeful fade-out. “Always and Forever”, with lyrics such as “If you have no plans, we can do whatever” promising that there is more to come from the band. The lyrics are accompanied by their signature two-chord guitar rhythm, which was perfectly solidified on their breakout single “Hard to Beat”. While one could accuse “Always and Forever” of being a rather dull whimper to end on, I would argue that it creates suspense for a bombastic restatement of intent on whatever track might follow on whatever album may come.
I came to rock music late, when my parents had an unpleasant breakup in 2001 and I unwittingly started to rebel. Hard-Fi was one of my first discerning loves, at least after the awkward infant years of my burgeoning interest. Their home-brew ethos still inspires me and their down-to-Earth liveability never fails to captivate me. The suburban knights are indeed back to finish what they started, and I am very grateful for that.
Do stay in touch, darlings.
Toodles!
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