Hard-Fi: Once Upon A Time In The West (Atlantic)

By Ben Liew  •  in Review
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Text Alif Omar

The cover visual’s declaration “NO COVER ART” is too self consciously clever for its own good, luckily the album itself is merely mediocre. With songs like ‘Television’ delivering angsty teenage sloganeering and ‘Can’t Get Along’ sounding like bubblegum tripe quite unlike them, West lacks the thematic weight of their debut. This isn’t to say the album completely falls flat, musically it’s more mature but the lyrical content leaves something to be desired. Perhaps more humility and less self-importance are in order.

This review was first published in the January 2008 issue of JUICE.