Stars of CCTVHard-Fi
Atlantic, 2006
Numerical Feelings: 8.5
Rollicking indiegaragepop rock debuts are everywhere these days, and what's worse is that for every one of those, there are like a billion indiegaragepop rock debut reviews. If a critic tells you such and such of those band/albums is great, or such and such is awful, you should know their opinion is completely arbitrary. Either they are currently sick of all these new band/albums, or they are refreshed from the last few they blew off, half-eager for something new, half-harboring favorably low expectations: the review will simply reflect that. It's all bullshit. I mean, all music criticism is bullshit, but sometimes there's more variety to it than albums like this produce.
There's a form somewhere titled 'Please select Hard-Fi Review', and one option is about the 'Raw Energy' and one is about how 'This band sounds precisely like the old bands it clearly looks up to, and bands that make the kind of music they like BORE ME': and nobody showed me where that form was. I suppose I select the first one. I mean, I probably just think this album's so great because I've been out of the game for so long. My reaction here is basically 'Oh my! Hooks and drumming? That's crazy!'
Still I'd like to submit that there are two things that this band offers to distinguish themselves from that basic premise, that they have in addition to just awesome hooks and drumming.
First, the eclectic genre-bending elements that Hard-Fi pull into each song (the source of their raw energy / unforgivably obvious tactic to enliven their rehashed sound): it's impressive how Hard-Fi employs the same kind of lean, efficient aesthetic as great hip-hop beatmongers, complementing their rebounding guitar hooks with the sharp, sophisticated synth lines and etc. inside an open, uncluttered sound. The presence of such large and robust bass in their mix reflects this. So, they know when their arrangement achieves hot-shit-ness and they leave it exactly there: but then they give the song, on its whole, a sense of reckless or inspired adventure that is rather impressive, to still fit so naturally with the lean pop sonics. Which is the second thing. There's not a track on here that the band fails to grace with slick interplaying hooks, and there's only a few that miss the inventive moments of contrast that elevate the others to more than just a factual statement of pleasant concept: to something expansive and surprising and just about indispensable.
So, there's something for this album outside of A and B, I guess. I like to try.
-6.4.2006
Stars of CCTV is the debut album from this British band. One of those foreign news channels was showing music videos for NO REASON the other night and that is how come I ever heard of them. 'CCTV', or course, stands for 'closed-caption television', which is kind of weird because deaf people probably don't even watch music videos anyway.
Track Listing:
01 Cash Machine
02 Middle Eastern Holiday
03 Tied up too Tight*
04 Gotta Reason
05 Hard to Beat*
06 Unnecessary Trouble
07 Move on Now
08 Better Do Better
09 Feltham Is Singing out
10 Living for the Weekend
11 Stars of CCTV*
(*: an asterik)
Track Listing:
01 Cash Machine
02 Middle Eastern Holiday
03 Tied up too Tight*
04 Gotta Reason
05 Hard to Beat*
06 Unnecessary Trouble
07 Move on Now
08 Better Do Better
09 Feltham Is Singing out
10 Living for the Weekend
11 Stars of CCTV*
(*: an asterik)