Stars of Cctv

One of the most eagerly anticipated releases of the year, Stars Of the CCTV is the acclaimed debut album from new British sensation Hard-Fi. Praised by NME as 'the album of the year', Stars Of The CCTV hit #1 on the UK charts and is heading towards double platinum status. The band has just picked up a pair of prestigious BRIT Awards nominations, and has been tearing up U.S. venues from coast to coast with their killer live show. Warner. 2006.

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