Albums by this artist

Hi-Fi Serious (2002)

Monkey Kong (2000)

A

Hi-Fi Serious

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» JONATHAN COHEN | SENIOR EDITOR

A Hi-Fi Serious Mammoth/Hollywood, 2002 RiYL: early Police, AC/DC, Porno For Pyros, Foo Fighters

We here at NATN headquarters have long since given up trying to figure out the logic behind rock radio playlists in these United States. We seem to be finally past the era when abysmally unoriginal, unabashedly mainstream groups like matchbox twenty and Third Eye Blind ruled the “modern rock” roost. Now it seems more like anything goes, with a tune from ultra-hip, indie-rooted rockers like The Strokes or The White Stripes just as likely to be played right after the latest from Creed or its god-awful progeny (Puddle Of Mudd, The Calling, et al.).

I’m all for radio-friendliness at this point, and with a combination of dumb luck and maybe some payola from the Mammoth/Hollywood radio promotion department, U.K. five-piece A could be saturating our airwaves. The group’s third album, Hi-Fi Serious (released here in July but out since earlier this year internationally), bulges with the kinds of breathless, overdriven rock melodies that demand being played at a blaring volume from your sound system of choice. If Jimmy Eat World can go gold and then some with guilty pleasure singles like “The Middle,” there’s no good reason A couldn’t reach the same heights with any number of tracks on Hi-Fi Serious.

A is distinctive amid a sea of sameness for myriad reasons. For one, I can’t think of another British band so obsessed with American culture that it swipes Van Halen licks ("The Distance") and writes songs about “Starbucks,” resort towns in Southern California (“The Springs”), and “endless summers.” There’s an endearingly goofball quality to the self-referential lyrics, but this has been toned down heavily since 2000’s Monkey Kong (that album’s “For Starters” was actually a song about... being in the band A).

Indeed, first single “Nothing,” which hit the top-10 in England, is the most serious, gnarly thing A has yet unleashed, and without a hint of irony, “Took It Away” presents the quintet as the antidote to “the records they play in hospitals." Later, frontman Jason Perry calls out his peers to show some passion, but vows to not die trying: “nobody means it / they’re making up stories / you’ve gotta blame someone / you can’t be victorious / I blame myself / I want an easy life / does it really matter ? / ain’t worth no suicide.”

The reverse cultural cannibalization makes for a diverse range of songs. On “Something’s Going On” and “Pacific Ocean Blue,” A imagines the early Police outfitted with distortion pedals and 21st century production values. Elsewhere, “W.D.Y.C.A.I.” and “Six O’Clock On A Tube Stop” offer clear nods toward the arena-sized catchiness of groups like Sum-41 and Blink 182, which would smack of bandwagon jumping if A hadn’t written the exact same kinds of tunes on Monkey Kong as well.

To that end, Hi-Fi Serious isn’t as much a creative leap as it is a refinement of what A does so well. The hooks are catchier, the guitars are louder, the production less gimmicky (instead of Speak And Spell samples, a riff during “Took It Away” enduces a mock digital earthquake). And on “Going Down,” Perry narrates the creeping doom of flying the not-so-friendly skies, and doesn’t come off like an ass while doing so. Hi-Fi Serious is good, clean, dumb fun -- play it loud and proud.

JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"