Hard-Fi
Another '00's pop-rock act who soon got dispensed with to join Athlete, The Feeling, Razorlight et al.
It's funny how the memory plays tricks. In my head, Athlete were around in the late '90s, it seems really weird that their debut album came around two years after
Is This It. Given that the whole surge of rawer sounding bands that got hyped up in 2001 - The Strokes, The Hives, The White Stripes - were talked about at the time as saviours of rock'n'roll from the whole acoustic end of post-Britpop stuff, it's weird to think that Athlete, Starsailor, Elbow, Keane and Turin Breaks all released their debut albums between 2001 and 2004. Even the Stereophonics' move towards mid-tempo acoustic stuff was in 2001, while Snow Patrol's was in 2003.