| Royal Trux - Veterans
Of Disorder |
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 I
had a slight disagreement with my very good friend Snitcher just
last week regarding the uncoolness of couples in bands, the kind of
ugh-factor that comes to a person's stomach (well mine anyway) when
you think of the tweeness of it. She's singing, he's on guitar or
whatever, their eyes meet on the high notes and solos in a
recognition that the rest of us will never know…. I reckoned this
was the case, he argued that so long as the music was good it didn't
matter. If he'd have added the words "Royal" and "Trux"
to his argument I would have had to shut my mouth immediately.
Because if they weren't having sex with each other on a regular
basis it would be confusing, just not right somehow.
I bought the last album "Accelerator" about a year and a
half ago and listened to it a fair bit, it was kind of raspy and
slack-assed Stonesy, sometimes it had anthemic moments, sometimes it
sounded like they'd fished out Bob Dylan's broken harmonica from the
bin and started parping on it but mostly it sounded cool and
interesting in a fucked up kind of way. My brother Nigel is a bit of
an obscurist with records and went looking for their first album in
London where he lives now, he found it for £8, it's called
"Twin Infinitives" and is apparently unlistenable, but
whatever floats your boat I say. I was looking forward to this album
more but I didn't buy it when it came out for some reason, I left it
a few months until, again, my brother bought it and I had a listen
to it first. It's more focused than the last one, the first track on
it has an AC/DC style riff and the last track on it sounds like
Sheryl Crow, only good on both occasions. In between there's some
quality guitar muddiness in crystal clear Dobly stereo and the woman
still sings like she has a turtles head going on downstairs, I liked
all this. I haven't listened to it just as much as the last album
even though it's better in many ways, they go flying all over the
place on it in but retain a kind of cool throughout, as if they care
what you think. As if.
In the end my favourite thing about this record is the picture of
the couple themselves on the back of the CD, she with her lips
pumped up like a inner tube for a budgie's bicycle and he with a
sticking plaster stuck over the bridge of his nose, all dead eyes
and methodone chic. It says to me that whatever they do they're
going to suit themselves first and foremost and even if this isn't
true the image is cool enough to be going on with. The music is a
soundtrack to it. It's a cool record.
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Rating: 8 out of
10
Reviewed by Gordon Peppard
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