IfIHadAHifi

Fame By Proxy

Written by: TL on 27/05/2009 23:54:15

You have no doubt noticed that for a few weeks now, the majority of the Rockfreaks.net staff has been more busy finishing uni projects or revising for exams than writing about rock'n'roll. A horrid situation that our label and distribution partners have decided to contribute to by shelling us with batch after batch of promos until we all have more free music than we have time to listen to. It's a hard life, I know. In between this myriad of releases that I personally have been signing up for rather indiscriminately are of course found a lot that I end up liking, and a lot that I end up not really wanting to listen to.

As you might have deducted from that bullshit-filled intro, this review deals with a case of the latter. IfIHadAHiFi are yet another band from the indie/punk neck of the woods, and on their third LP they present a sound that fits their name perfectly. There is nothing "HI-FI" about this band at all. Rather they sound like the kind of band that's more focused on sounding punk than sounding good. You know. Play their instruments while falling down the stairs kind of music. Sure there are a couple of odd bits of catchyness in a couple of songs of their record, but mostly the description from their own myspace sounds sadly accurate:

"Look. Here's the deal. IfIHadAHiFi are full of a bunch of bitter, pissy assholes who play loud, unlistenable cacophany with a dance beat and have been doing so since 2000."

So whether you're going to like this or not will depend on whether you have a weird liking for such a thing. It's not that the songs on here are bad, in fact they are rather easily accessible and pseudo catchy, but in terms of musical quality it sounds like Beastie Boys playing a Blood Brothers/Ramones remix inside of a tumble drier. Obviously being noisy is sort of the point, and looking at it that way you could call the album an unconditional success but it just really doesn't do anything towards making me want to listen to it. So I guess what I'm saying is that this record isn't exactly a total travesty, but honestly, the spectrum of people who're going to like this is going to be relatively narrow, and if you ask me, this is one of the cases where unpopularity is not an injustice.

4

Download: Paradise By The Paulding Light
For The Fans Of: Beastie Boys, The Ramones and Blood Brothers jamming during an Earthquake
Listen: myspace.com/ifihadahifi

Release Date 06.04.2009
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