It’s a position of some privilege, but having signed to the Merge label – formerly home to Arcade Fire, Spoon and Neutral Milk Hotel – the realisation dawned on Owen Williams quickly that for their third album The Tubs would have to up their game. Having released Dead Meat (2021) followed by the critically adored Cotton Crown (2023) the quartet admittedly are yet to become household names, but Williams acknowledged the shift in ambition recently by declaring “We wanted to make an album that was grander”.
He also shifted gears in songwriting persona; whereas on the first two records he inhabited a world of “Navel gazing about romantic abjection, London squalor and the indignities of grief” Hard Life saw him creating a doppelganger who he admits “Doesn’t have much time for the first.” The band also replaced guitarist George Nicholls with Dan Lucas, but the greatest leap comes by weaving in the fiddle of Chris Haigh, whose fascinating fact was that he played on Steps’ ‘5, 6, 7, 8′.
A cover of that would’ve been fascinating, but instead the Celtic warmth it brings acts as a counterpoint to a familiar undercurrent of bitterness, sweetening the likes of Didn’t I Say or If You Don’t Love Me, whilst Heaven or London dwells on being chewed up and spat out by the capital. There are worse accusations to suffer than being compared to Hüsker Dü – as the quartet have frequently been in the past – and these references continue to be littered around on the titular opening track and the fuzzy, abbreviated Hell.
The apex though comes from a most unlikely corner. Originally recorded in 1978, Prince’s Do Yourself A Favor didn’t officially surface until after his death but here the snazzy keyboard flourishes – and a wise decision to leave out the Purple One’s sprawling ad-libs – make for a thrilling pop bullseye. Upping their game? Yes mate, with Hard Life The Tubs have completed it.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 