Jack Hardy - Coin of the Realm (2004)

Graphic artist Laura Moran created an illustration for the cover of Jack Hardy's album Coin of the Realm that depicts the singer/songwriter as if he were a heroic worker in China's Red Army, striding with a bomb in hand and dwarfing a May Day parade full of tanks and fighter planes. "Songs for the New American Century," proclaims a banner. This revolutionary art signals an album containing strong political views, even if they are often expressed, typically for Hardy, in allusive and metaphorical language. Just in case the message is not clear, he provides a short written preface beginning, "We must reclaim patriotism from those who use it as a cover for aggression, self-interest and greed." He leaves little doubt that one of those he has in mind is George W. Bush, who is addressed directly in the song "In Bed with the Enemy." Hardy is angry, and he is also in mourning; his brother and bandmate Jeff Hardy died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. That event haunts the songs on the album, even if Hardy doesn't address it directly. It is there, for example, when the narrator of "Sword in the Stone" sings, "I had a brother/I have a brother no more." It also comes out in the religious and spiritual references heard throughout the disc and in the wrestling with grief (in "Pray for Me") and blame (in "Denial"). Hardy, usually accompanied by a number of musicians for folk-rock arrangements on his records, here performs alone with his acoustic guitar and occasional bursts of harmonica. His singing and playing are less precise than usual, as if he hadn't done the songs many times before recording them, as if he were still working through the emotions they express. This makes Coin of the Realm an unusually intimate and forceful Jack Hardy album, one with the rough edges still on.