The Hard Quartet – ‘The Hard Quartet’ album review: a beer with the boys
THE SKINNY: The blues got stoned and it gave birth to The Hard Quartet. It is often the case that yesterday’s young radical becomes today’s centrist dad, but the four-piece behind this self-titled racket have not shackled themselves with middling safety, nor have they tried to cling to nostalgia, they’ve mutated slacker sensibilities into something strangely muscular.
The group consist of Emmett Kelly, known for his work with Ty Segall and The Cairo Gang, Stephen Malkmus of Pavement and The Jicks fame, Matt Sweeney of just about everything, and Jim White of the Dirty Three. They came together after circling around each other for long enough that they figured they might as well become a foursome. The result melds each of their skills into a solid corpus.
It’s a riff heavy volley of rugged indie rock. Yet, it is also more than happy to abandon these riffs in favour of spirited noise. The production, similarly, flits between these two poles of lo-fi studied carelessness and really quite crisp and anthemic high-end culminations. This creates an interestingly textured record with a truly idiosyncratic identity to boast – a patchwork of all that’s best about its four proponents – but within the heady mix, it can often be all too keen to court jarring dissonance that lands just the wrong side of harsh.
In this regard, you can tell that there are moments when the band are finding their feet together and occasionally out of step, offering too much at once—though much of this can be put down to the excessive 15 song runtime, which perhaps should’ve been refined. Because the gems on the record find them gelled harmoniously, creating a fresh sound that puts The Monkees on skateboards, and pushes Jack White out of a crackling and scuffed Sony Walkmen, orated largely by Malkmus’ ageless voice.
It’s a decidedly analogue study of themes of poetic randomness both in its lyrics and wayward rock ‘n’ roll heart. And with gems like ‘Rio’s Song’ and ‘Action For Military Boys’, it promises plenty more from The Hard Quartet; a band who hit like a beer on a bad hangover.
For fans of: Grabbing a beer with the boys down at the micro brewery… before being called home in a hurry and asked to grab diapers en route.
A concluding commented from Eddie Van Halen: After all these years, these boys still can’t hit a clean note or make a single fellow jump.
The Hard Quarter track by track:
Release Date: October 4th | Label: Matador | Producer: Matt Sweeney
‘Chrome Mess’: A roaring amp hum, the type you might expect from Josh Homme, welcomes you to the record with a fittingly hard handshake. Unusually, the track borrows a lot of modalities from pop-punk, but its heart is much more akin to Jack White becoming a member of Pavement. [3.5/4]
‘Earth Hater’: A down-tuned malaise of deadbeat dissonance, ‘Earth Hater’ is not an easy tune to get along with. It’s the antithesis of Steely Dan by design—a fact that some will cheer and others will bemoan, but either way it doesn’t make it great. [2.5/5]
‘Rio’s Song’: After the heaviness of the dissonance that came before, vocal duties are switched and we take a flight to sunnier climes. A little arpeggio riff creates a welcoming melodic space with a sweet up-up chorus. [4/5]
‘Our Hometown Boy’: The band find themselves in strong harmony in every sense. Not only are there plenty of BVs bringing a boldness to the topline melody, it is here that they sound most like a band on the same hymn sheet. [4.5/5]
‘Renegade’: A blitzkrieg that would’ve burst the doors of the CBGB open: punk is alive and well. However, within the mix of the record it proves a little hard to suddenly take in and largely blurs by you. [2.5/5]
‘Heel Highway’: “Bring me peace on earth”, is the prayer of the song, but its uttered with such lacklustre spirit that you’re immediately captivated by the odd juxtapositions of the song. Compositionally, the band build this anthem in parts. A triumphant production. [3.5/5]
‘Killed By Death’: The ever-changing sounds of the record now welcome something akin to a solemn Byrds into the studio. A cracked and tender vocal makes this possibly the album’s most earnest and affecting effort—and there’s really not too much to it. [4.5/5]
‘Hey’: A slow slacker waltz where Sweeney delivers sweet sliding sounds, ‘Hey’ is an old-school effort that feels as though it’s the revivified memory of a Pavement off-cut, coming at you from the liminal past. It’s a thing of poetic beauty, and you can’t be too sure why. [4.5/5]
‘It Suits You’: Bewildering tuning creates a dark and dissonant world—feeling a bit like stepping one toke over the line. A claustrophobic mix is perfectly achieved in the dense production but that only heightens the overly effective foreboding feeling. Unpleasant. [2.5/5]
‘Six Deaf Rats’: “Fell for a singer with a dead-eye draw,” is a line that feels vulnerably autobiographical and showcases the record’s ability to craft great lyrics—something ‘supergroups’ often neglect. Musically, the band enjoy a hard-earned nap. [3/5]
‘Action For Military Boys’: A totally baked reimagining of the blues, whereby a searing riff is muted and messy and Malkmus drawls of stars aligning. Then a sudden Strokesy middle eight showcases the experimental heart of the album. [4.5/5]
‘Jacked Existence’: The first haunts of an acoustic completely beguile you in an instant. After a sustained storm of electric scuzziness, the dogeared old acoustic sounds like a mystic instrument from a bygone era. But the song itself doesn’t feel overly thought-out beyond that. [2.5/5]
‘North of the Border’: There is a sense of the band returning to childhood memories as they sing of bicycle riders and create a sense of distance with the faraway production. they play with blank space and the loud-quiet of their craft. [3/5]
‘Thug Dynasty’: Experimentalism now results in a magnificent marriage of doo-wop, the blues, and lo-fi indie. Such a marriage was never meant to happen in this world, but since this world went awry, the odd mix feels perfectly fitting and captivating—an utterly bizarre Adam Curtis-like experience. [4.5/5]
‘Gripping the Riptide’: The record doesn’t go out with much of a roar, it’s more like an older rocker falling asleep on the sofa, but that doesn’t mean that this elastic-waisted hero hasn’t offered up a fresh hurrah. [3.5/5]
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