The Hard Quartet review – cosmically trippy joy from Stephen Malkmus supergroup

An indie/alt-rock supergroup-of-sorts featuring Stephen Malkmus (Pavement, the Jicks), Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Superwolf), Jim White (Dirty Three) and Emmett Kelly (Cairo Gang, Ty Segall), the Hard Quartet’s debut has an audible vibe of four guys enjoying hanging out, sharing vocals and playing together.

There’s plenty of the scuzzy guitars, big riffs and off-kilter melodies of their regular groups. The songs careen from preening avant-glam (steamrollering opener Chrome Mess) to early Buzzcocks-type power-punk (Renegade) but it’s mostly a cosmic, trippy affair, with drug references and at least one outright paean to marijuana in the lovely Heel Highway (“Rustling up some liquid hash to make some colours flash”).

However, the pop sensibility and level of songwriting elevates the Hard Quartet well above a stoner jam session. Killed By Death uses an old Mötorhead song title and gorgeously entwined guitars to muse on life and mortality. Hey has something of the Velvet Underground at their most sweetly narcotic and the shapeshifting T Rex/Libertines-y Action for Military Boys speaks up for young soldiers (“crazies every side of me / I feel lucky to be alive … the modern warfare for which we train is nothing like a fuckin’ video game”). There’s an occasional misfire (the meandering Thug Dynasty) but the guitar playing is wondrous and the tunes constantly delight and surprise. Rather than being a cosy back-slapping exercise, these veterans have brought the best out of each other.