Royal Chant are going places. They’re motivated. They’re making big plans. That’s their take on the matter, anyway – the above statements of purpose form the chorus of Dick Move, the charming, fuzzy number that kicks off their new LP. And actually, in this case, they might be right. The War Cry Of Failure is the band’s strongest release to date; a warm, distinctly human collection of sludgy hits.
Indeed, although the lyrics are offbeat, on the whole the LP is stunningly pop-oriented. Royal Chant deploy hooks the way a hunter lays out bear traps. The guitar lines nestled in The Familiar Taste Of Familiar Mistakes and the wry I Am A Model have the power to ensnare the casual listener. Not that they don’t know how to keep things nuanced. For every one of the LP’s crashing choruses, there is a quiet moment of introspection to serve as its mirror image. On the one hand, you have the intense guitar solo that sends Well Hey, I Guess Things Break flying into its composite parts, and on the other you have the mournful, vaguely tragic harmonica line that carries I Can’t Make It On My Own over to its spit-and-tear-tainted finale.
It’s powerful stuff, simultaneously a collection of gouging self-directed insults, and a cautiously optimistic manifesto: a war cry of failure, indeed.
BY JOSEPH EARP
