The Hard Quartet - The Hard Quartet

Back in August, the announcement of this new supergroup raised a fair few eyebrows. The lineup is not one you would logically put together; Stephen Malkmus, indie rock poster boy, playing alongside Matt Sweeney, who’s shared stages with Iggy Pop and Andrew W.K.? Add to the mix Emmett Kelly, a folk guitar experimentalist perhaps best known for his work with Ty Segall, and Jim White, drummer with Dirty Three, and you’ve got a strange brew in the making. No wonder, then, their debut full-length as The Hard Quartet is such an unpredictable ride. There’s all sorts going on: Malkmus indulging in thrashing punk on ‘Renegade’; atmospheric, countrified interludes like ‘Killed by Death’ and ‘Jacked Existence’; explorative chamber pop (‘Thug Dynasty’); and freewheeling guitars (‘Rio’s Song’). Often, the songs feel improvised, as if the floor was open for any given member to grab it by the scruff of the neck and take it in a certain direction; these moments tend to be the record’s most thrilling, with the stylistic slalom of ‘Action For Military Boys’ being a case in point. Not everything works, but far more does than you’d expect, given how gleefully the band seem to be throwing anything and everything at the wall to see what sticks. Perhaps that’s why supergroups so often flounder; the individual members have a tendency to be too precious about their own ideas. For The Hard Quartet, it genuinely feels as if anything goes.