CD - Hard Fi - Once Upon A Time In The West

Reviews, By timmeyboy, 11th September, 2007

Over the past few years there seems to have been an influx of bands where the hype literally took over everything about them (Arctic Monkeys’, The Darkness, Scissor Sisters). These bands had such a meteoric rise to fame with their first albums that the bar was set high for their follow up CDs and in each case the album fell short. However once in a while, a band comes out that manages to avoid the over publicity and still make some of the best music of the past 12 months. This band is Hard Fi.

Hard Fi first came to attention with the massive hit Hard To Beat and then was followed by Living for the Weekend, and the re-release of the original debut Cash Machine. Following on from the success of their debut album Stars of CCTV we have Once Upon A Time In The West.

Musically, this album is a lot darker than the original and gives us a very different sound. Richard Archer’s vocals are sometimes difficult to hear over the band but that adds to whole feel of the album, and when the band takes a break and the vocals come forward as on the haunting Help Me Please, which was written about the death or Archer’s Mother, it really emphasises the mood.

This isn’t to say that the band have changed too much, there are still some great songs on the album with the new single Suburban Knights, topping the list, as well as the quirky Television and the piano ballad Tonight. The album flits between moods like a kid with ADD and manages to pull it off. It’s good to hear a band try different styles on an album rather than stick to the formula that got them to the top.

It’s hard to tell if the Australian CD buying public will take the band to their hearts but they will be given a chance when the band pop down under for shows in Sydney and Melbourne on October 3 and 4 to promote the new album. Also at the time of writing the album had just hit #1 on the UK album charts, making it their second UK album to do so after Stars Of CCTV.

Once Upon A Time In The West is out now through Warner and tickets for their gigs in Sydney and Melbourne are still available from Ticketek.

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