By:Scott Jeffrey
Generally when I sit down to listen to an album it is possible to pick out the Mozart in the group. It’s the band member who drives a track with 3 minute guitar solos, epileptic drum lines and well, no polite way of saying it, flea’ing out on bass.
The issue with Knoxville Tennessee Natives Royal Bangs latest effort, Flux Outside is that there is no standout. What we have here is a trio of Mozart’s. There is no power struggle for who carries the biggest musical peen. Instead a harmony.
This band is wickedly tight, and on my journey through the album I was impressed, jaw droppingly so with some of the musical prowess displayed by each member over this 12 track lp.
A very tough band to classify, the only real way to put a label on the band is to say that they use many elements from many genres. You’ll hear great arena rock vocals, southern rock harmonies. Glam rock guitars, Blues fuzz, Hard rock drums, even some 8 bit video game sounds. Experimental does not even begin to describe the pop/indie/rock sound this band has. Talk about them for 3 minutes and you sound so hipster it hurts.
Launched into the album with Grass Helmet, you are half expecting it to be a Tokyo police club song. Bass and drums work together to make sure you feel this in your chest, it would be a really fun song for a live show. This is the first song on the album which displays the interweaving vocal harmonies Ryan Schaefer brings to the table. The only real comparison I can attach to this would be a similar style used by the Trews. Only the lyrics on this album seem to have real meaning, poetry even. (Not that “I’m not ready to go” does not have its own form of poetry, which seems to make the most sense after 8-10 drinks.)
Dim Chamber is actually the song that attracted me to the album, with its fuzzy bass and guitar, this is a standout song that could almost be a funeral march. With twinkling piano rolls faintly heard in the background, the bass kicks in and takes this from an amazing grace, to an arena anthem.
Bull Elk starts off with a wrist-breaker of a drum line that comes in and out throughout the whole song. Reminiscent of muse or even The Mars Volta the arrangement would be a nightmare to perform. This track is just a wall of sound. By no means the catchiest song on the album it does have a certain “wow” factor and shows that these guys are really no slouches when it comes to their instruments.
For a dirty bluesy track Slow Cathedral Melt opens with a very cool bass lick and builds from a slow and downtrodden tune into a huge high note bringing back that massive sound wall these three men are capable of creating.
I could go on and on about tracks on this album as each one has a really unique quality.
This is not a radio friendly album because the material is sort of un-focused, I wouldn’t say there are any true stand out radio singles. Some of the songs do a bit too much experimenting with electronic sounds where a simple lo-fi approach could have created a very different/ potentially better product.
I will say about this album, is that it is something very refreshing and different, it should be listened to loudly, it is worth hearing the Royal Bangs wall of sound for all it is.
7.5/10
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