Why has the whole Pitchfork thing become such a sticking point for Sydney’s Royal Headache? Australian acts such as Beaches, Geoffrey O’Connor, Miami Horror, Muscles, Twerps, and even The Veronicas have experienced far greater levels of exposure through the infamous indie kingmaker (and that’s disregarding the ‘Monkey pee’ 0.0 review of Jet’s Shine On).
Thing is, nobody actually gave a shit – and rightfully so. But why Royal Headache? Is it because we feel they’re more deserving of international exposure? Or we see the band as a more fitting ambassador for Australian music as a whole? Or is it simply that the band have given so little in the way of biographical info (pretty sure they’re the only Sydney band in recent memory to have not gained exposure with the aid of a fashion magazine) that journalists and online commentators alike are making do by clutching at whichever peripheral aspects they can.
Of course, the band’s scarce live appearances have done little to stave off such conjecture, with the few Melburnites to have witnessed the band in the live setting seemingly to have done so at this year’s Camp A Low Hum, held in New Zealand.
Simply put, Royal Headache is a fucking good album. The bullshit surrounding goes some way toward compensating for the record’s distinctive lack of bullshit. They are no knowing winks of irony anywhere to be found – just drums, bass, three chords, and one hell of a singing voice. And mother of god, what a voice. While treble-overblown guitars act as rampant knife-sharpeners, frontman Shogun’s impassioned vocals plunge the blade deep within the listener’s chest, twisting with uninhibited vocal tics.
Loaded with heartbreaking rhetoric, Really In Love tells the tale of two doomed lovers in the throes of limbo, acting as an omniscient narration. Within half a beat of “Maybe she broke your heart?” being raised, “I know she did” is wailed with an unquestionable authority. The theme carries into Back And Forth, with a more forlorn recounting of the futile relenting to the doldrums of heartbreak.
There’s an overbearing self-imposed weight of impedance throughout the LP’s dozen tracks. It’s this dynamic of resistance which generates such impalpable levels of electricity – a static uprising from the darkest depths of the soul.
The chorus for Psychotic Episode screams “Psychotic episode and I’m not feeling good,” as if the two aren’t mutually inclusive, or as if ‘psychotic’ is an appropriate default disposition.
The album’s two instrumental tracks obviously strip back the band’s greatest asset. Two Kinds Of Love is miles away from the Blues Explosion song of the same name, while Wilson Street provides a breezy respite, as if the instrumentals breathing space from Shogun’s beautifully pugilistic vocal takes.
Viewing back from afar, Royal Headache presents the stunning, triumphant apex of Australia’s contemporary garage-rock narrative.
