ALBUM REVIEW: Club Majesty – Royal Republic
Unless you’ve never read a newspaper or owned any sort of technology that keeps you in touch with current affairs, you’ll be very aware that we don’t exactly live in a world of rainbows and butterflies right now. As such, when something comes along to banish the grey and gloom with every single colour imaginable, it’s a true delight and deserves to be devoured as much as possible. ROYAL REPUBLIC are just the sort of band to fire that magic bullet, and fifth studio album Club Majesty is just the ticket for a ride of pure, unadulterated fun, dropping in via Nuclear Blast at the end of the month.
Recently, vocalist Adam Grahn said that for this very site that the band wanted to go in any and every direction they fancied on Club Majesty, ensuring that they never turn down ideas because it didn’t fit their style and embracing whatever came their way. It’s a bold move that has got other outfits into serious trouble, but at no point do ROYAL REPUBLIC sound like they’re suffering an identity crisis. Rather, they have produced eleven songs with such vigour and jovial delight that it’s impossible not to get swept up in their cartoon-ish universe of sunshine and lollipops. This is by far and away the most fun record of 2019 and will ensure they draw a huge crowd when they play Download Festival next month. The ska-punk vibes of Boomerang are so infectious they’ll cause an epidemic of dance moves, the funk of Can’t Fight The Disco is a surefire way to shape throwing of the Saturday Night Fever kind and they even have the gall to pull out a saxophone for Fireman And Dancer and the very end of Under Cover to the benefit of both tracks.
The more the album progresses, the more you realise that ROYAL REPUBLIC are not a band to do things halfheartedly. If there had been anything less than full commitment behind Club Majesty the record would have nosedived very quickly, but the strength of the band’s delivery cannot be overlooked. It means that songs such as the slower Like a Lover come across as easy going and cool rather than sleazy and Fortune Favors is underpinned by a menace that’s wearing eyes on springs and a comedy moustache. Even Stop Movin’, with its looped lyric of “I wouldn’t stop moving/If I could stop moving“and weird voice-box effect on the vocals halfway through exudes merriment by the bucketload; another outfit would have been laughed out of town for pulling such a move, especially when it’s followed up by the new wave feel of Anna Leigh, but ROYAL REPUBLIC’s gleeful throwing of all caution to the wind has paid off handsomely. They even finish with a song called Bulldog about, well, a dog. Yep, nothing deep or substantial, but by this point ROYAL REPUBLIC have triumphed so well that this is just a cherry on the top of a technicolour cake even Joseph would be envious of.
If ROYAL REPUBLIC came into their own on previous record Weekend Man, then Club Majesty is them realising their full potential. Only the stoniest of hearts won’t be moved to jiving throughout this album and only the sternest of faces won’t be left grinning from ear to ear. This is the sound of a band not only at the very top of their game, but having the time of their life in tandem, and it’s one they are bent on sharing with every person on the planet.
Rating: 9/10
Club Majesty is set for release May 31st via Nuclear Blast Records.
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