Hard-Fi

Stars of CCTV

(Atlantic)

1.5 of 5 Stars



Pop quiz: Hard-Fi, Kaiser Chiefs, and the Bravery—which of these bands is not like the others?

Trick question: they’re all absolutely identical. While Hard-Fi may be the British buzz band of the moment, they don’t add anything new to an iPod that already contains the Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, and Franz Ferdinand.

In fact, as the album progresses, it becomes clear that “Stars of CCTV” is nothing more than a catalogue of pre-fabricated ideas, an uninspired assortment of regurgitated sounds. Each song calls to mind another band that’s already been there and done it with much more panache.

For example, “Cash Machine,” the album’s first song, sounds a bit like the Clash, albeit a Clash with way too much studio time and a narcoleptic Joe Strummer. The lyrics are Gang of Four-lite, providing a faint-hearted critique of capitalism that doesn’t extend far beyond a complaint that not having money sucks.

Dance-rockers Radio 4 provide the basis for the second track, “Middle Eastern Holiday,” and the album continues in a similar vein, trotting out monodynamic mid-tempo homages.

The voice of lead singer John Archer sounds a bit like new wave heavyweight Joe Jackson, but stripped of any edge. And when he tries to be James Murphy-cool on the LCD Soundsystem sound-alike “Gotta Reason,” he can’t quite pull it off.

Most disappointing (besides the fact that “Living for the Weekend” is not an O’Jays cover) is “Move On Now,” a power ballad sans power, which treats the audience to five minutes worth of mopey piano. All the while Archer lets his inner Adam Levine out: falsetto cries of “baby baby” abound. Of course, even here Hard-Fi fails to completely capture the timbre of their source material; at best, they’re Maroon 3 or 4.

It’s not all bad. There are some interesting influences hiding beneath the surface of Hard-Fi’s sound. Their broad sonic palette boasts a wide variety of electronic sounds, and some of the album’s most interesting moments occur when Hard-Fi tries to sound more Daft Punk than Maxïmo Park. But even that doesn’t always work, giving the music the unwelcome sweaty sensation of being trapped in a trashy European dischotheque.

What’s most tragic about the release is that it finally gets good with the last track, “Stars of CCTV,”from which the album takes its name. It’s a completely different sound for Hard-Fi: the acoustic guitars give it an organic feel that never survives the brash overproduction of the rest of the album. It’s also the closest Hard-Fi comes to finding a truly catchy hook.

Maybe it’s unreasonable to expect anything terribly different from the next British hype-band. It’s not unreasonable, however, to at least expect Hard-Fi to sound excited while serving us cold pizza and flat coke the morning after the new new (new) wave hit American shores.

Sorry, Hard-Fi: you failed this test.