Item: hard life - onion
Rating: 2.5

Reviewer: Bella Martin

Released: 18th July 2025

Label: Island

The public goodwill that hard life - then known as easy life, prior to the legal intervention of a certain budget airline’s busybodies - garnered on being forced to change their name could only arguably be beaten in current times by RAYE’s label-based exasperation and the encouragement of Lewis Capaldi on his return to the live stage. That is to say, it was a lot. And yet, 18 months on from those final shows as easy life is a lifetime in musical terms, the nearly three years from second album ‘Maybe In Another Life…’ even moreso. Unfortunately, ‘onion’ does little to reignite those headline-making sparks that flew so fervently in support of the outfit’s fight.

Their brand of soft pop remains resolutely fine. At its best, there are some more interesting musical choices made: largely in ‘P1LOT’, with its use of vocal effects and mid-song switch up suggesting late-night chaos, and the peppy ‘p a n o r a m a’, with its guitar-led trip-hop beat. Yet, between the songs are cloying interludes on which the outfit eschew the wisdom of ‘show, don’t tell’ entirely, as if aware the songs themselves do little to reiterate their protagonist’s mental state. The closing ‘end credits.’, in particular, feels the need to underline how they worked really, really hard on the album: a fact which one would imagine should be self-evident in having produced a decent record, if not simply the bare minimum.

What’s more, the music - which on the whole offers little to grab hold of - is repeatedly let down by jarring lyrical choices. ‘OCTOpus’ offers a pleasant melody and earwormy chorus, but reeks of vain attempts to be deep: “I can’t get myself out of bed / I blame the government,” mutters frontman Murray Matravers, without ever explaining why. Similarly, the otherwise breezy pop of ‘y3llow bike’ is interrupted by the choice “shower you like April”. Amusing wordplay, perhaps, but also likely to induce reactions akin to the kombucha girl meme. Therein lies the crux of ‘onion’, a title which suggests multitudes, yet in reality - as with its edible namesake - just repeats more of the same, with frequent pauses to wince.

Tags: Album Reviews, Reviews, Hard Life, Island