Hard-Fi - They Ain’t Your Friends

Hard-Fi are back tomorrow with their new single ‘They Ain’t Your Friends’.

Direct and venomous grooves launch the Staines band back into action alongside their archetypal dub flourishes. Sonically, the track is rooted in two old demos which Archer left open on his laptop one day, only to find later that his ten-year-old son had stitched them together. From there they developed the joyous chaos and presumably, tense legal discussions over PRS payments.

Archer, famed for his social comment lyrics, has come out all guns blazing as skewering the shallow and vapid corners of the industry he once placed faith in. As he snaps out “the big shot looter fingering his prize”, images of cultural predators consuming for ill-got gains emerge vividly. He goes on to lament the modern world’s addiction to social media and cocaine, “fake friends on Facebook, fake friends on your phone / fake friends in the bathroom”.

Although the music industry was always polluted with sharks, there was still a sense of meritocracy. Bands knew that you could dance with the devil and win. Archer’s perceptive polemic lays bare how this dream has faded and leaving a vacuum filled by content-chasing, unengaged, ill-informed gatekeepers.

Make no mistakes, Hard-Fi are back!