Hard Life

Description

Upon arriving in the United States for their first American tour, singer Owen Williams told the New Yorker: "We're here to unify the country. We're coming three times. At this point, I think this place will start to heal." And joyfully, they did just that — cramming into a van to traverse the United States far and wide with their literary show, red-eyed and the taut thread of the night of your life. Hard Life is their third album, and their ambition is to complicate the Tub-ular experience. With the chemistry they've developed over two albums and hundreds of concerts, Williams (vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass), Dan Lucas (guitar), Taylor Stewart (drums), and Max Warren (bass) delve deeper into the shimmering heart of virtuosic indie rock. They are joined by Lan McArdle, George Nicholls, and Rachel Kenedy, but the secret to the lushness of Hard Life is the addition of violinist Chris Haigh, whose playing shadows Williams' melancholic crooner like a bruise — more folksy on "Stoop to Me," more anthemic on the title track. Hard Life also complicates the familiar character of the Tubs. The navel-gazing romanticism and London squalor are still there, but a second voice emerges — tougher, more battle-hardened, with little patience for the first. On the single "Who's Gonna Love You Now?", it's the grump who takes over, his sarcastic questions carried by guitars that resonate against an organ-lit horizon. These two voices argue, blend into one another, and separate again, sometimes within the same song. "But they're mostly just pop songs," says Williams. Exquisite, irresistible. To be listened to until the healing begins, and then again.