Yes! Royal Republic are back with yet more stinging funk, high octane rock and wild sax solos all filtered through the crazed eyes of Dick Valentine and Freddy Mercury. The Swedish loons’ fourth album, club majesty is yet another blast of glorious, good-time rock that will provide a neat soundtrack to any number of summer parties.
From the opening blast of fireman and dancer, Royal Republic are on explosive form, channelling disco, funk, rock and Queen-esque harmonies into a sub-three-minute track that has all the qualities of a sonic-anti-depressant. It’s wild party music for people who think that it’s a kind of magic was too restrained in its approach or that what rock music really needs is a dose of The Village People playing Bootsy Collins covers. It’s a huge, day-glo assault on the senses that will leave you with a giant, beaming smile and, before you know it, you’re being beaten over the head with a cowbell on can’t fight the disco, a ridiculous, maddeningly addictive track that you’ll be singing in the shower before you even know you’re hooked. Up next, Boomerang is what happens if you stick the Rolling Stones, Dead or Alive and Electric Six in a blender and hit the mix button with the lid left off, resulting in a sticky ceiling and a chorus that you can’t shift even with turpentine. The band fire up a taut, sexy groove on under cover, which sees Adam Grahn deliver a brilliant vocal before like a lover slows the pace down to a dense, riff-fuelled crawl that still manages to spin off in unexpected, Beatles-esque directions when you least expect it. The first half of the record swings to a close with the Elvis-infused rock ‘n’ roll of blunt force trauma, which harks back to the surprise Junkie XL remix of a little less conversation.
Opening the album’s second side, fortune favors is another track with rockabilly guitars and a supreme sense of confidence that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Clutch record. It’s gloriously over-the-top, right down to the humorously insulting lyrics and it lays the ground for a return to the super-fly funk of flower power madness. Next upwe get a track that taps into the good-time vibe of Fatboy Slim’s second album in the form of stop moving, a sure-fire dance floor filler built around a repetitive lyric and Chuck Berry guitars. Heading to the 80s for inspiration, Anna Leigh is the closing song to every movie from Dirty Dancing to Police Academy, bright, breezy and a lot of fun before Bulldog brings this all-too-short record to an end in a blaze of high-speed punk ‘n’ roll, Adam taking on the mad-preacher mantle of Neil Fallon as the band plunge into Trashmen territory behind him. It’s a brilliant and breathless ending to a brilliant album.
Aptly named, Club Majesty is a varied album that feels like the result of too many shots consumed inn a seedy, down-at-hell nightclub, the dance floor alive with ripped jeans and broken heels as the DJ spins a selection of trashy rock ‘n’ roll. It’s an album that makes you feel alive, as the lights blaze and the heat of the close-packed bodies overwhelms the air conditioning and at the end you’ll be too busy humming whatever track commends itself as your favourite to care about anything other than putting it on again and pumping up the volume. A brilliant, attention seeking dose of blistering rock’n’funk’n’punk’roll, club majesty is a whole heap of fun from start to finish and will undoubtedly soundtrack a great many nights out. 9
