The Serendipitous Hottness: Royal Bangs
Long before I started doing this blog thing, I was booking bands at house parties and other disreputable venues on the westside. Even a bunch of Tech kids getting drunk in a backyard can be valuable exposure to young bands just starting out, so I’ve always done everything I can to help bands that I thought had potential. The whole point behind both this blog and those parties was to give art an audience. Connect people to good music. You know, “Those who can’t do, teach.”
So recently one of the local outfits that I’ve been rallying for reached out to me for help in booking another band. The band needing some help turned out to be Royal Bangs, and has been one of my favourite discoveries of this year. It is mind boggling to me that none of the very talented booking agents around this city didn’t nab a band of this caliber (I mean they’re playing at Bonnaroo) before me, but I hadn’t heard of them before this either, so I guess I just got really lucky. It’s so nice to have great music just dropped in your lap.
The record I now have on my heaviest of rotations was actually self-released by the band back in 2006, but Black Keys‘ drummer Patrick Carney scooped these guys up for a re-release on his label, Audio Eagle, last month. What I love about this album most is its balance. It has such a ridiculously accessible sound and remains so engaging at the same time. It pays tribute to the roots of rock ‘n’ roll while at the same time successfully co-opting progressive and somewhat experimental musical ideas seamlessly. Each song holds its own, but the album has a distinct structure to it. They get get hard, fast and wail on the guitar, or they can do soft, sweet melodies. I think you could easily draw comparisons between this band and just about any important band over the last 20 years. You’ll find these various different comparisons on the multiple other blog-hype posts across the Internet. Don’t let that fool you. It doesn’t come off as some generic hybrid of other peoples styles, but rather they have tapped into some strangely transcendental sound.
So I recommend going and picking it up. If you’re going to Bonnaroo, be sure to catch them late tomorrow night. If not, they will be playing at WonderRoot a week from tonight. In addition to Royal Bangs, we have also gathered two of Atlanta’s best young bands for you to check out, This Piano Plays Itself and a solo, acoustic set from Nomen Novum. Come down and party with us next week!
Royal Bangs : Little Switzerland
- Posted by Davy Minor on June 11, 2008 at 12:38 pm
