The Tubs have never lacked for ambition on Hard Life, theirs is to complicate the Tub-ullar experience. Having perfected their chemistry across two prior albums, hundreds of shows, and an ever-expanding universe of bands affiliated with Londons Gob Nation Collective (The TSG, Sniffany & The Nits, Spike, and Garden Centre), the London-based Celtic jangle boyband Williams (vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass), Dan Lucas (guitar), Taylor Stewart (drums), and Max Warren (bass) push themselves further into the shimmering heart of virtuosic indie rock. Theyre joined by frequent collaborators Lan McArdle (vocals), George Nicholls (guitar), and Rachel Kenedy (keyboards), all of whom have orbited various Tubs-adjacent efforts dating back to Joanna Gruesome, but the secret to Hard Lifes lushness is the addition of fiddle player Chris Haigh, an instructor and session musician who left an indelible mark on British pop on Steps 5, 6, 7, 8.

Mirroring Williams use of trilling on vocal melodies, Haighs fiddle shades the vocalists rueful croon like a bruise. On Stoop to Me, the folkiest, jangliest pop song on the album, Haighs licks complement Williams at his most self-deprecating, the lopsided smile of a guy trying not to let on how wounded he is in unrequited love. On album opener and title track Hard Life, its the sweetness of the ascending fiddle lines in the mix that weds the harshness of Williams lyrics to The Tubs fist-pumping anthemics.

The hard line Williams takes here and elsewhere on Hard Life further troubles ones idea of a Tubs song. The persona familiar to listeners of Cotton Crown and Dead Meat to quote Williams, navel gazing about romantic abjection, London squalor, and the indignities of grief and OCD is still present, but so too is a second voice, steelier and more experienced. The second persona doesnt have much time for the first, Williams explains, often haranguing him for his self-indulgence and immaturity; sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly.

On Hard Life, these voices argue, pester one another, merge into each other, and break apart, sometimes over the course of a single song. Theyre two sides of the same coin, people whove experienced grief, disappointment, regret, and shame, emerging from the wreckage as changed men. Im interested in the way sympathy and patience for someone suffering always runs out eventually, Williams says. How this can be a good and liberating thing as well as a sad and brutal thing. But mostly theyre just pop songs. Exquisite, irresistible pop songs. Spin them until the healing starts, then spin them again.