The Royal Scam

Here's one of those funny reviews that you find yourself writing at this level. It's a decent record, and deserves praise, but to be honest I know I'll never listen to it again in my life. Ever. Striking the correct tone can be tough, and my favoured technique is normally to balance the positive criticism with some stupid flight of fancy just so everyone knows the review has a sense of perspective...by not exhibiting any.

I'm not sure that makes any sense. Anyway, they're a decent band - they're a fuck sight better than the Noel Gallagher CD that came free with the papers, that I'm listening to whilst I type. Jesus, even as I wrote that Paul Weller came on and made things worse. I need tea.

THE DIRTY ROYALS - Demo

It completely amazes us that so many people turn away from folk music as boring – you just have to listen to the lyrics for a generous serving murder, rape, bargaining devils, and lashings and lashings of real ale. Like Nick Cave before them, The Dirty Royals seem to have taken inspiration from old folk broadsides for their sterling crime ballad, “Josephine”, which tells us what a scrape the eponymous heroine has got herself into with her nefarious activities, and the narrator poses the only rational escape plan – a suicide pact. Fantastic stuff. Musically it’s a bit of a treat too, bundling excitable drums behind supple Rickenbacker-like guitar and clear vocal harmonies that spring from the politer suburbs on the outskirts of psychedelia. A slightly tasteless, if technically proficient, bit of wailing guitar does stick its oar in when not needed, but otherwise this is a tune with a pretty righteous shimmy, and we’re definitely admirers.

“Back For More” opens with a similar guitar sound, that could well be Peter Buck on an early R.E.M. record, and also has some pretty winsome close harmonies, but is a somewhat more restrained affair and has just a bit too much of an anodyne college rock kick to it, and The Dirty Royals lose points for putting us in mind of Hootie & The Blowfish after at least a decade of blissful amnesia.

We’re back on track with “Cover Up The Sun”, however, and we wish our stereo had surround sound, so we could sneak round the back of the guitar part and see if it has “Property of The Byrrds, do not remove” stamped on it. What the hell, it’s a pretty harmless bit of borrowing, and the tune has a devil-may-care 60s pop bounce to it that puts us in mind of The B-52s and locals Shirley, when they’re having fun and aren’t trying to be all grown up on us. In all honesty, it’s easy to imagine this tune soundtracking a montage in an early 90s rom-com in which the hapless yet lovable hero has to tidy up his frat house, in order to make it look like a snug restaurant, to charm the Dean’s strait-laced daughter. If that sounds a bit glib, hell, it’s pretty glib music, airy, light and infectious, and we give it a goofy smile and a thumbs up. We can also imagine it all being a bit of a blast live. Uh oh, the Dean’s coming, we’ve got to run off and hide the stuffed moose head we stole from his office to win a keggers bet. All good harmless hi-jinks; are you ready with the accompaniment, Dirty Royals?