Royal Headache.

Given the modicum of worldwide attention they’ve accumulated, Sydney’s Royal Headache were already lurking somewhere on my ‘to listen’ list, but it was a welcome nudge from Ruan of Popical Island last month that pushed me into actually doing said listening, and I have subsequently listened to their self-titled album (released variously by XVIII Records, R.I.P. Society and What’s Yr Rupture?) a great deal.

As is the case with Melbourne compatriots Eddy Current.., Royal Headache are a great and refreshing band whose appeal is so straightforward, it’s difficult for writer-types to pen a description that doesn’t make them sound shitty. I mean, left to my own devices, I'd probably describe them as something like “no nonsense, high energy guitar pop with catchy tunes and a great singer”, but then that quote might get inadvertently picked up by someone looking for copy and printed on a sticker in a record shop (hey, don’t laugh, it’s happened), and then no one would want to listen to Royal Headache ever again, and they'd have no option but to split up in disgrace. And I wouldn’t want that to happen. With great power, etc. So, zeroing in a bit, let’s instead say that this is sort of a happy collision between yr lo-fi ozzie punk and yr Exploding Hearts/Big Star/GBV power-pop, and see where that gets us.

As is often the case with these “just the same old stuff done well” type deals, I find myself recalling Billy Childish’s watertight formula for making a good record – ‘good song, good sound, good performance’. As I get older, I find myself becoming increasingly strident in my demand that song-based rock bands fulfil these basic criteria, and increasingly quick to dismiss them when they don’t. So… hopefully it will carry some kind of weight if I simply state that Royal Headache hit their marks better than any example of this kinda music I’ve heard in a long while.

Aside from anything else, it’s great to hear a white, male vocalist who sounds like he’s really fucking committed to the idea of being the vocalist in a rock band, rather than just ‘the guy who happens to sing’, delivering these Motown and Big Star informed numbers the way they need to be delivered in punk scene context – big and bellowy, but without being a preening jerk about it or anything, like a detoxed Robert Pollard giving it his best Otis Redding moves.

And as to the band, well… given the style of music they’re aiming for, I could easily see Royal Headache turning into one of those groups who record a really disappointing, over-polished follow-up album with all their vital energy drained out into some gutter behind the studio, gathered up in plastic bags by some unscrupulous sound engineer, watered down and sold back piecemeal to lethargic teenage punk bands (because that’s the kind of thing they do in studios, kids). But for the moment, on this first record, Royal Headache are just fucking ON. Personally I might not have gone with that ultra-trebley Rickenbacker guitar sound, but that’s the dude’s choice and he does good work with it, high-end distortion spreading hither on yon across the to-my-ears-perfect 8-track tape level fidelity, all musicians audible even as everything bleeds everywhere for a big, warm, band-in-a-room sound, amp noise cleaving across into the cymbals on each chorus for authentically headache-y effect.

As I say, this kind of magic rarely lasts long these days, but to all intents and purposes this Royal Headache LP is some real ‘lightning in a bottle’ shit, capturing the rush of a great band just being a great band. And that’s something that’s hard to beat, regardless of where they head in future. As a yardstick of general good-ness, just consider the fact that they throw in about three instrumental cuts on this album, all purely of the “this is just like one of our regular songs, but we forgot to do the vocals” variety. Y’know - no solos or instro hooks or anything, just chords and bass and drums… and you won’t feel like skipping through any of them. How did they manage that?

If anything, the instrumentals just act as necessary buffers between the chest-beating rama-lama of the vocal songs, which are…. pretty damn good, on the whole. Maybe not quite world class song-writing prowess or anything, but the energy and soul of the performance gets them straight to the bullseye more often than not. There’s a few punk stompers (‘Psychotic Episode’ is a winner), and the joyously self-explanatory ‘Girls’ (destined to instigate 80 seconds of carnage at your next barbeque), but mainly they sing about love, like ye olde bands used to – being in it, not being in it, having it, not having it – y’know, the whole thing. Now I’ll admit that currently I might be more inclined toward the enjoyment of songs about, I dunno, bulldozers or ghosts or military history or something, but with the oomph of singer + band behind the material, the old “love, love, love” thing works out nicely for Royal Headache, and it’s a great time, right words hitting the right chord changes just like they need to.

So in conclusion, that’s Royal Headache folks. All round quality. If you need stuff like this in your life right now, you won’t find much better. Our vendors are waiting.

Labels: Australia, I like, Royal Headache