The Hard Quartet is a band that can be described as superlative when looking at its members. After all, it features four musicians and songwriters - Stephen Malkmus, Matt Sweeney, Emmett Kelly and Jim White - who are associated with the greats of indie rock: Pavement, Chavez, Ty Segall, The Cairo Gang, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Guided By Voices, Cat Power, Dirty Three and Bill Callahan are just a fraction of the musical institutions in which the four have had their fingers (and voices).
The Hard Quartet's self-titled debut has been the subject of lively speculation online ever since the band's formation was announced: "It's simply a trusting environment in which everyone is ready to say: let's throw all our stuff into one pot and make something bigger out of it," the band said. The fact that things are going so well despite their separate musical biographies is certainly also due to the fact that the four of them had crossed paths several times before. "I have a history with Stephen and Jim that goes back to the 1990s," says Matt Sweeney. "Well, at least it goes back to the 1990s. More recently, it was Emmett who made a really deep impression on me. So much so that it changed the way I think about playing."
The album combines the strengths of Malkmus, Sweeney, Kelly and White, oscillates between sunny slacker rock and noise experiments and should delight anyone with a penchant for the golden era of US indie rock.
