Product Description

'Stars Of CCTV' is the debut album from Surrey-based indie rockers Hard-Fi. Fusing together a host of influences, including Happy Mondays-esque baggy, sunkissed Ibizan grooves andeven classic two-tone ska, Hard-Fi have crafted an album that buzzes with raw energy and enthusiasm, celebrating the best of British pop culture. Includes the singles 'Cash Machine', 'Tied Up Too Tight' and 'Hard To Beat'.

Track Listing

1. Cash Machine
2. Middle Eastern Holiday
3. Tied Up Too Tight
4. Gotta Reason
5. Hard To Beat
6. Unnecessary Trouble
7. Move On Now
8. Better Do Better
9. Feltham Is Singing Out
10. Living For The Weekend
11. Stars OF CCTV

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5546 in Music
• Released on: 2005-07-04
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Road-tested in a car speeding the mean streets of Staines, Stars Of CCTV - the debut album from Middlesex’s Hard-Fi – consciously sets out to update the sense of frustrated tension and suburban dread that powered second-wave ska acts like The Specials and The Beat back at the close of the ‘70s.

Don’t get it twisted, this isn’t ska-punk a la Brit troupers [Spunge] and Capdown: Hard-Fi play this music lean and moody, like The Streets on downers, or Massive Attack plugging in and tuning up. "Cash Machine" sees a swallowed debit card as the jump-off for vocalist Richard Archer to spin a tale of crushing poverty and unwanted pregnancy, spurred along by thrumming dub bass and the sad wheeze of a vibraphone. They do upbeat as well, as club anthem "Hard To Beat" – a heart-fluttering composite of Northern Soul elation and fist-pumping Rockers reggae – joyfully confirms. But it’s the emotional struggle, the ups and downs of life, that keeps Stars Of CCTV engaging throughout: see penultimate track "Living For The Weekend", a hedonistic blast filled with not a little of the passion that fuelled Oasis’ Definitely Maybe, which succeeds chiefly because it’s all too aware of the bad times as well as the good. --Louis Pattison

Customer Reviews

Excellent.
One of the hallmarks of a great album, particularly in the 60s and 70s, was that every song on it would make a killer single. This is less applicable now that an artist can make a single album longer than a double would've been twenty years ago, but albums like Michael Jackson's Thriller or Revolver by The Beatles sounded like Greatest Hits records. In a modern era where too often bands will make albums with a bunch of great singles and then a load of filler (Kasabian, Kaiser Chiefs, we are looking at you), Hard-Fi have revived this art.

Straight out of Staines, Hard-Fi have their poppy edge tempered by Richard Archer's street-level lyricism and a grimey, working-class grey underlying all their songs. As such, no matter how catchy a song like 'Tied Up Too Tight' is, there's a sweaty, serrated edge to the guitars and production (recorded at their home studio) that saves the album from being lightweight. This urban menace particularly enhances the dub-tinged breakup anthem 'Better Do Better,' the 9-to-5 paean 'Living For The Weekend' or the politicised alienation of 'Middle Eastern Holiday.' Meanwhile, the charming monochrome of piano ballad 'Move On Now' brings to mind passing streetlights and council houses in a way the Arctic Monkeys would soon perfect.

What's more, for this writer's money 'Hard To Beat' is one of the finest songs of the 21st Century so far. From its walking bass to its stabbing guitars and keyboards which sweeten the album without sacrificing its edge, the song is the highlight of the album and will probably always be the highlight of the band's career.

An album stuffed full of hooks, guitar hero moments and lyrics to capture your heart, Stars Of CCTV is an excellent debut from a band who will probably be overlooked for the rest of their careers.

Quality stuff
Hard-Fi are reaching for a great tradition of British Bands whose social conciences need venting. Sometimes this can be patronising or downright annoying but thankfully this is not one of those times. Hard-Fi seem to have it nailed.

Opener Cash Machine is a lament to the lack of money that so many of us recognise, Richard Archer's observant lyrics lift a song that's already pretty musically compelling. This is followed by the driving fury and abject confusion of Middle Eastern Holiday, a song about the futility of sending teenage boys halfway around the world to die pointlessly. The singalong chorus in Tied Up Too Tight gives that song an energetic quality which leads into the slightly pointless Gotta Reason and Hard to Beat, two songs that constitute the album's mid-point slump. Unnecessary Trouble picks things up with a Clash-lite tone before the CD goes back into full swing.

The ballad Move On Now may not fully fit the tone of much of the rest of this collection but it is nonetheless a lovely song in the `recently broken up' vein. If that song is the sound of a broken man then the following track Better Do Better is the sound of a man who has moved on now, but only through embracing the bitterness he feels. Its dramatic, fairly visceral, and brilliant and should strike a chord with anyone who has ever been betrayed then had to look the betrayer in the face when they come crawling back. After the brief soap opera interlude offered by these two tracks we return to the political themes with Feltham is Singing Out before moving onto the cracking single Living for the Weekend. Part lads' anthem to weekend debauchery and the amazing feeling Friday night brings and part return to Cash Machine's themes of being young, underpaid, and unappreciated this is worth the cost of the album on its own. Finally the title track Stars of CCTV brings things to an enjoyable close as Archer sounds off about the surveillance society we seem to live in now.

There's not a lot to dislike here, the majority of the songs are enjoyable to listen to, the band have their own sound that sets them apart from many contemporaries (probably not hurt by Archer's estuary English when compared to the usual Northern twang most indie bands display) and even the albums low points aren't all that hard to bear. If its has one major flaw its that Hard-Fi seem to like the dial to be turned all the way up to "epic" and that means that sometimes it can be an album that you'll reach past because of a mood. However, its still a great piece of work and one I listen to all the way through on occasion- which in this era of iTunes and shuffle is as high praise as I can give it.

Hard-Fidelity All-Stars
You can't move for guitar bands. Standing there... looking all promotional shot, wielding their instruments, trying to sing lyrics that say something (ma'hn).
From its very title, the boys from Staines are trying to keep it real or so it seems.

Essentially the boys have got the songs to back it up. "Tied Up Too Tight", "Living For The Weekend", "Hard To Beat" and "Stars of CCTV" are all tracks that when played are convincing and British guitar music of a good quality.
Where this album really soars is on "Feltham Is Singing Out", a devestating, corrosively compelling song, well written with a dark-edge hovering over its tragic lyrics. Songwriting pen as sharp as it gets on this album. But a good peak.
"Better Do Better" soars to an epic peak and works rather well. See you can be a geezer in your shell-toes and still be all hurt and soar to an epic peak.
The title track "Stars Of CCTV" is another fine song, sounding plaintive and persuasive. The falsetto is rather lovely.

So a decent debut with some fine songs on it. Not a consistent classic debut but a promising one.

Only trouble is not sure the lead man can sing live all that well. He might want to sort it out. Know what I mean. Like with him being in a band and everything.