Hardknox

OK, I'll come clean. Hardknox has been a guilty pleasure of mine for quite some time. They're yet another electronic act to spring forth from independent label Skint Records in the UK (original home to Fatboy Slim, Bentley Rhythm Ace, and many others). They put out two fantastic 12" vinyl singles on Skint a while ago ('Coz I Can' and 'Psychopath'), and frankly, I never thought they would emerge from the underground to do anything more. Well, thankfully, I was wrong - their selftitled album just came out recently. It has both of their singles on it, and stays true to all of the pointless bombastic rhythms that made those 12"s so great.

Unlike Mr. Slim's tactic of getting hips shaking with a fun, retro groove, Hardknox's Lindy Layton and Steve P. pretty much pummel listeners with dark, angry basslines and loud, piledriving rhythmic assaults. I can't claim that anything they do is particularly clever or smart, and there are absolutely no redeeming qualities to this stuff, but that's what guilty pleasures are all about, right? By the way, Lindy was Mr. Slim's co-conspirator back when he was known as Beats International - I suspect that she's the one mentioned in the title of his song 'Loops for Lindy' (or 'Song for Lindy' depending on which version you're looking at).

If you'd like, you can email me here: richard@hearingmusic.com.

Oh, and all content on these pages is copyright Richard Lewis.