When Royal Bangs came out of Tennessee in 2008 with their debut, We Breed Champions, they were very much a band who wore their Nu Yorican loyalty badges on their sleeves. The album sounded like The Strokes and The Bravery had met up in a Brooklyn warehouse for a jam, found an old synth kicking around, and chucked that into a couple of numbers in an effort to sound a bit different. They even risked their respectability, on Japanese Cars, by sounding uncannily like The Killers.
On latest offering Let It Beep, however, the influences are less obvious; they’re still there, but they have been chopped up into little pieces, run through various distortion pedals, and reassembled the other side in such a random order that you’re left scratching around for references, leading you to the conclusion that this must be their very own sound.
Opening track 'War Bells' is a case in point; the vibrating, distorted bassline and bleeping instrumental breaks have an electro, Late Of The Pier feel that straight away tosses out any expectations the previous album might have raised. The galloping beat and Klaxon guitar of 'Poison Control' and the chaotic percussion of 'My Car Is Haunted' only serve to underline the point.
Things start to get a little more various on 'Brainbow', which skirts around Yeasayer territory, while on B+E, the band risk dipping their toe in to the MGMT pool, before withdrawing it quickly a minute and 15 seconds later.
It is a full seven songs before there is any reminder of the direction from which Royal Bangs came. 'Shit Xmas' is Julian Casablancas fronting The Postal Service, while 'Tiny Prince Of Keytar' wouldn’t have sounded out of place on either a Strokes or Bravery album.
However, that brief return to original form thankfully doesn’t signal a running out of new ideas. The guitar over breakbeat of 'Waking Up Weird' (the nearest they ever get to a previous labelling by one magazine as a “younger, quirkier Radiohead” – the drums could have been lifted straight from In Rainbows) suggests that the guitar band does electro-chaos formula might be one they intend to explore further, while '1993' implies they might even have listened to the odd Los Campesinos! album while writing their new record.
The only slight blot on the copy book comes on 'Gorilla King', when things take a turn for the directionless; it sounds as if someone has pressed the demo button on a synthesiser they don’t know how to work, and is then frantically pressing other buttons, trying to turn it off.
On the whole, on Let It Beep, Royal Bangs have probably decided what it is that makes them bang, at least for now anyway. Time will tell if their audience agree.
You can keep up to date with all the latest news from Gigwise by following us on Twitter and liking us on Facebook.
The Single Women In Music: For The Guys.jpg)
The Single Men In Music: For The Ladies
Use A Condom This Valentines Day: Musicians And Their 'Love Child'
