Most everything sounds charming with a British accent. But the lyrics to “Better Do Better” from England-based indie band Hard-Fi should be excluded from this generalization. With lines like, “Your face makes me want to be sick/Yeah, it’s a physics reaction,” the song is an ode to former victims of heartache who are now bitter and empowered.
Not all of Hard-Fi’s lyrics are quite so harsh, though. Take, for example, “Living For the Weekend,” which completely contrasts its more caustic counterparts. The entire song glorifies those two brilliant days when responsibilities yield to going out with friends, having fun and spending too much money. Listening to it on a dull Wednesday night of physics problems or dry reading is almost all the motivation you need to get through the week to Friday.
Hard-Fi manages to be catching without sounding too poppy or redundant. Their songs are perfect to pick you up when you’re alone in your room, but also to blare with friends while driving around on a Saturday night. These guys might not start the second British Invasion, but they’re definitely worth checking out.
The way some people talk about “pop music” is more of an insult than a classification — a real pity, since the New-York quartet Murder Myster defines this genre in unaccusably brilliant ways. The band’s debut album, Are You Ready For The Heartache Cause Here it Comes, is filled to the brim with incredibly slick melodies, peppy hand clapping, and sugary sweet harmonies that are nothing but pleasant — and fun — to listen to.
Track three off from the album, “Love Astronaut,” is a picture-perfect example of what Murder Mystery is about. Driven by a simple two-note keyboard phrase moving up and down the scale, and jazzed up by catchy guitar and bass solos, the song can’t help but make you feel good, in spite of the fact that it tells the story of a man who’s “looking for love” and can’t find it. But even the lyricists, brother-sister duo Jerry and Laura Coleman, can’t get caught up in the melancholy of the topic, instead singing smiling lines like, “I’m the captain of a ship or an astronaut in space, traveling around the world looking for pretty face.” In a time when more and more indie music is tended toward pretention and seriousness, the bright pep of Murder Mystery is a more-than-welcomed a breath of fresh air.
Editors at The Emory Wheel, Emory University's student newspaper, sound off on their favorite albums and artists of the moment. You can find more info here.
Courtesy of Atlantic Records
Courtesy of Team Clermont