ANT - CURES FOR BROKEN HEARTS

Track extracts:

>> YOU'VE LOST YOUR APPEAL <<

>> TOUNGES <<

MAGAZINE / INTERNET REVIEWS

CURES FOR BROKEN HEARTS
AMAZON
When not totally taken over by his day job as the drummer with cult indie heroes Hefner, Antony Harding, a gifted singer/songwriter in his own right, sits at home with his acoustic guitar and pens naive, honest and innocent ballads. Or at least that's the outward appearance of Cures For Broken Hearts, his first widely available collection of magical and perfectly formed acoustic pop. The title track's gentle samba, the seemingly cuddly sentiments of Fly On Your Wall and Ant's smiley vocals, sounding like a chirpy version of Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan, all point to a happy-go-lucky character singing soft & gentle ditties about how wonderful the world is. A closer listen to Ant's lyrical content, however, shows something quite different; behind the tender acoustic ballads are some quietly pointed and vengefully words, that suggest comeuppance is his ideal cure for a broken heart. Delicate and slightly twisted, this mini album of lo-fi lullabies and songs about how much he and his love really don't get on, is just perfect.
Dan Gennoe

CURES FOR BROKEN HEARTS
TOP MAGAZINE
Ant has produced a small, sweetly-formed five track thing entitled 'CURES FOR BROKEN HEARTS', in which his fractured voice cracks over sensitive songs that are really quite endearing. Opener 'You've Lost Your Appeal', in particular, is disarmingly doleful, while 'Tongues' is one of the beguiling, idiosyncratic love songs in recent memory.
Nick Dverden

CURES FOR BROKEN HEARTS
Q MAGAZINE
While his day job band busy themselves edging toward the pop mainstream, Anthony Harding aka Ant has found time to forge an almost secret solo career. Here he chronicles the unsatisfactory state of his romantic life. The lo-fi troubadour routine is a little predictable, but generally it's likeable, delicate stuff. Indeed Harding's helium vocal on Tongues is genuinely impressive. The overall effect is still more than that of a troubled soul pouring his emotional traumas into a personal diary than a visionary artist attempting to engage with the world, but Harding carries his singular calling with no little aplomb. No place for the usual drummer/musician jokes, then.
David Sheppard

CURES FOR BROKEN HEARTS
FUSED MAGAZINE
If you’ve ever possessed a broken heart, been in love, or thought of being in love; then this mini – album could be right down your street. Ant’s day job is drumming for John Peel’s favourite band, Hefner. But by night the s-man spends his time penning DIY manuals about the human condition called errrrrr; love. Strickly low-fi in its approach, the gentle set of inspired songs touch a chord deep down inside. Naive heartfelt lyrics will leave your speakers and penetrate your very soul as you sit there crying into your coffee, wondering how on earth Ma and Pa Walton ever made it through one week let alone a lifetime; there’s hope for us all. And it’s arrived by way of ‘Cures For Broken Hearts’. Check it out; it’s what the doctor ordered.
Martin Signchanger

CURES FOR BROKEN HEARTS
PLAYLOUDER.COM
Nothing whatsover to do with floppy-collared, face-painted new romantics, Ant is Antony Harding from Hefner. As a drummer's solo project, you might cynically expect this 5-track mini album to be either washed out water colour vaguely approximating the sound of his band or a willfully unlistenable death-metal or electro-freakoid exercise in obscurity, but ‘Cures For Broken Hearts’ is neither. Rather, it’s a collection of delicate and dewy-eyed songs of love and lost love.

Sure, there’s stuff that’s recognisably Hefneresque mainly the obsession with kissing girls but these songs are much les pervy than Darren Hefner’s;more daft and cute, more innocent: ‘I’d give up all my selfish little dreams to be in hers’, he earnestly sings on ‘The Cure For Broken Hearts’, and you just want to take Ant home and feed him Ribena.

His knife-edged honesty is commendable there aren’t many people around who pin their hearts quite as brutally to their sleeves as this and romance-wise Craig David ain’t got nothin’ on him. A lyric so hopelessly smitten and violently protective as ‘In case you think of me on a morning when regret creeps in/in case you’re missing me on a night when loneliness beings/now that you’re free I really need to be a fly on your wall’. (Fly On Your Wall), would surely crumble the wall of all but the coldest hearted. In a time when singing about 'special laydeez' and being 'the best at makin' lurve aaawl night' is seen as emotional depth, a little soft and gentle lovin is welcome. Make a little space in your heart for this.
Dixie Townsley

CURES FOR BROKEN HEARTS
365.COM
Let’s face it you’re about as likely to see a drummer start a new career as a vocalist as you are Britney Spears join Slipknot. Still, Dave Grohl proved that stickspeople aren’t always creatively stunted beings who like hitting things, and Ant, from indie popsters Hefner, is trying to do the same. And, despite the fact that at times (‘Spoil’, especially) this mini album descends into the sort of blandness Belle and Sebastian occasionally slip into, he succeeds. Essentially, it’s because his acoustic, string-laden ballads (the lovely ‘Tongues in particular) betray a fine ear for delicate, gorgeous melodies and aren’t averse to the odd hook. Plus he has a voice soft and androgynous enough to make the sensitive boy image entirely believable.
Eddie Taylor

CURES FOR BROKEN HEARTS
SCENE ONE
Hefner drummer and all-round good guy Ant sticks his head above the parapet for a third helping of the kind of bitter-sweet tunes his day job churns out but the difference is in the presentation.

‘Cures For Broken Hearts’ is a mini acoustic album spanning love, hate, pain, happiness and sadness. So far so Hefner, you’d be forgiven thinking, but these tracks are a much more Nick Drake affair.

Favouring a pastoral approach and touchingly sincere lyrics to do the work that Hefner lead Darren Haymen leaves to lyrical twist and pop riffs, this a warmly sentimental affair for winter evenings by the fire. Love is the law here. 'Tongues’ could’ve come straight from ‘Bryter Later’, whilst the title track borrows from 'A New England' whilst retaining the hope of new lovers. Only ‘Spoil’ really plumbs the depths of despair of the freshly sundered.

Erring on the right side of whimsy,’Cures For Broken Hearts’ is short and sweet, high on hope and full of emotion rather than being concerned with global issues. Not as bombastic as Hefner and more heartfelt than Coldplay, Ant will hit the spot with impossible romantics everywhere.
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