Hard Life par The Tubs

Дата публикации: 10-09-2026 22:00:00

Title : Hard Life

Main artist : The Tubs

Alternative & Indie - Released on September 11, 2026 by Merge Records

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The Tubs|Hard Life

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Langue disponible : anglais

Breathe easy, The Tubs have somehow sidestepped the dreaded Difficult Third Album Syndrome. Instead of chucking the hard-won perfection of their power-pop/post-punk/folk-rock amalgam and disastrously detouring into psychedelic polka or something, the Welsh indie-rock cult darlings not only stayed the course for Hard Life but maybe even topped themselves a touch.

Singer Owen Williams seems to have fully embraced the fact that when he leans his accent into The Tubs' earwormy melodies, his husky, heartfelt tones come off like a fortuitous four-car pileup with Bob Mould, Richard Thompson, Paul Weller, and Billy Bragg behind the respective wheels. And the band as a whole effects a full-bodied musical realization of that selfsame combination. You've got to keep your head low to avoid getting clocked in the head by the constant flurry of sparkling power-pop hooks propelled by punky energy. And, especially with the aid of British fiddler Chris Haigh, the strains of U.K. folk that haunted the background of previous Tubs albums come closer to the fore.

Fortunately for fans, The Tubs' overall outlook on life hasn't gotten any sunnier. If lyrics like these were framed by even marginally less sunny-sounding arrangements, Hard Life would come with a warning against operating heavy machinery while listening. But the Welshmen have long since mastered the elusive art of contrasting misery-ridden themes with the perkiest melodies possible, which is where much of their magic is derived.

Even when Williams sings, "It's a hard life, well mate everybody knows/ And you could kill yourself, well that's just the way it goes" on the album's title track, the hard-charging glory of the guitar riffs is enough to restore your faith in humanity. The resulting push-and-pull is exactly the sort of artistic frisson that Tubs lovers turn up for.

In the occasional moments when the band brings the tempo down a tad and pushes the acoustic guitars up front, like "Didn't I Say" and "The Way It Goes," the bittersweet melodic turns are enough to break your heart. And The Tubs consistently leave as little as possible between them and the material. Even if they weren't so audibly pouring 110 percent of themselves into every moment, lines like "Don't wanna play with The Tubs anymore if you don't love me" (from "If You Don't Love Me") pretty effectively eliminate any possibility of maintaining emotional distance.

But before you even start to explore the lyrics, Hard Life is bursting with enough frothy bursts of pop pizzazz to keep you completely invested all on their own. For example, if a savvy music consultant doesn't latch onto "Who's Gonna Love You Now?" as the opening theme for some sweetly sardonic coming-of-age rom-com, pop culture will be the poorer for it. © Jim Allen/Qobuz

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Hard Life