A quick update on the music news for the week before I get started: The Righteous Brothers‘ cover of “Unchained Melody” is on jukeboxes everywhere; anticipation for The Beatles‘ up-coming album “Help!” is reaching fever pitch; and The Ronettes‘ latest, “Is This What I Get For Loving You?”, has flopped, rather embarrassingly. That’s right: it’s 1965.
Relax, you’ve not really gone back in time. But there are moments on El Paso-fivesome The Royalty‘s self-titled debut when you could be forgiven for thinking that you have. As they openly admit, there’s more than a touch of ’60s pop influence. Brass stabs, doo-wop backing vocals, and some really, really satisfying drum fills all add up to one fat, old-school Wall of Sound. That’s fine by me: I love Phil Spector - not necessarily his life choices, but at least his production techniques.
The four gentleman members – Jesus, Dan, Will and Joel – have been playing together in various projects since they were in their tweens, but the real lethal weapon in the arsenal is their most recent addition, singer Nicole. She’s gifted with a voice that might hit sweet highs at times, but make no mistake: it could knock divots out of concrete. At times there’s a hint of Rainer Maria’s Caithlin de Marrais, and you know what? I like Rainer Maria; Pitchfork be damned.
There have been a few stabs at recreating the girl-group soul magic (in the “Supremes” rather than “B*Witched” sense) in recent years, most notably The Pipettes. But where The Pipettes feel like a lab experiment that didn’t quite work out (+5 points for science gag), The Royalty feel much more natural. There’s no sense that they’re deliberately trying to mimic a sound; just that they like to make music, and the music they like happens to include a big whack of Phil Spector.
This avoidance of pastiche allows them to bring in more contemporary influences, such as Pixies (okay, slightly more contemporary influences). They also look to the current glut of surf-gazers: Best Coast, Surfer Blood and the like. Overall, though, their sound is very much their own. “Every Little Bit” opens with a big all-members-in yell-fest worthy of Arcade Fire; “Chinese Fire Drill” deploys angular guitars that any British indie rockers of the past ten years would be happy to call their own (I’m looking at you, Bloc Party).
When I asked them what inspired them to start a band, the reply was simply, “because we love music.” It’s a sentiment I couldn’t agree with more, and it shows through in the quality of the song-writing. I can’t imagine The Royalty are going to be anything like under the radar for much longer, with a new album due later this year and tours to follow. In the meantime, though, you can grab “The Royalty” free on a track-by-track basis, or $1 (very much worth it) for the whole shebang, over on Bandcamp. If you still need more convincing, check out the highlights below.
Connect with The Royalty – Facebook | Twitter | Website | MySpace | Bandcamp
The Royalty – ”Honestly”
The Royalty – ”Silver Screen”
The Royalty – ”Chinese Fire Drill”
