Search - Laughing Hyenas :: Hard Times

The real thing baby

Michael C. Stephens | charlotte, nc, usa | 05/27/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Sludgey, feedback soaked blues-rock and junkie Detroit street soul -- as raw, hard and heavy as it gets. John Brannon's vocals sound like Jagger on steroids cut with lithium. Larissa Strickland's guitar style borrows from Keith on cuts like "Just Can't Win", but her melodic lines, crude and harsh though they are, have a rare emotional honesty. The aura is a drug-soaked, self-destructive downer, and the pictures of the band on the cover, tell a tale of excess and self punishment. All the songs are great, but standouts are the thunderously heavy version of Johnny Cash's "Home of the Blues" and the Hyena's own "Each Dawn I Die". This last cut is a gloomy, bluesy masterpiece that should be in any serious music lover's collection. Buy this album if you like Flat Duo Jets, Stones, Stooges, Sonics, Howling Wolf... its the real thing baby."

Moments of greatness here and there, but a disappointingly i

drumwolf | San Francisco | 07/17/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I'm a huge fan of the kind of Stooges-influenced, blues-and-garage-punk-flavored, raw fuzzed-out rock that the Laughing Hyenas played, and few bands did it better than the Hyenas did on their previous LP's LIFE OF CRIME and YOU CAN'T PRAY A LIE. (Both are combined on the LIFE OF CRIME CD. Get that CD -- you won't be sorry.)



Then I heard one song off HARD TIMES -- "Slump" -- which was even better than anything on the LIFE OF CRIME CD, so I eagerly rushed out to get the whole CD. I put it in the player, and it started out with real promise, as the first couple of minutes of the first cut, "Just Can't Win," was every bit as raw and rocking and solid as "Slump" was. Then halfway through the song, it shifted gears and slowed down and lost all its steam... and except for "Slump," the rest of the album was just as listless and weak.



I consider HARD TIMES a profound disappointment, especially because "Slump" and the first half of "Just Can't Win" show just how great the Laughing Hyenas could be, but the rest of the album isn't up to snuff."

Worth a listen

Woodrow | Brooklyn, NY United States | 06/24/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"A lot of people were (and still are) kind of negative about the Necros era of the Hyenas but I always liked them. This record is pretty good. It's slower and looser than the previous records but rocks. Larissa's guitar playing is always great. She's completely under-appreciated and is sadly no longer with us.



If you don't have any Hyenas, check out Merry Go Round and Life of Crime/You Can't Pray a Lie first. If you really flip, come back and get this and the Crawl EP.



1 point of trivia. Around the time this came out I saw the Hyenas play one of those stupid CMJ showcases at a club called the Marquee in NYC. The opening act was Rage Against the Machine (they were just as silly back then as they are now).



Check out Mighty High...In Drug City."