Royal Bangs: Let It Beep
(Audio Eagle)
Let It Beep is an interesting title for Tennessee quintet Royal Bangs’ sophomore effort, but it only tells part of the story. A much more explanatory moniker would’ve been Let It Beep, Bang, Crash, Bounce…. and Rock. Coming across like a younger, more focused Flaming Lips (particularly on the evidence of this year’s Embryonic), they five-piece manage to combine soaring guitar symphonies, quirky pop melodies and frantic electronica into one seriously engrossing whole.
From the galloping ‘Poison Control’ to the relentless ‘War Bells’, the dancefloor bothering ‘Brainbow’ (like Hot Hot Heat at their best) to the punk noir of ‘Shit Xmas’, Ryan Schaefer and friends prove they’ve enough ideas for a dozen Young Scientists’ exhibitions. They’re not afraid to cross-pollinate from genre to genre, demonstrating equal dexterity at angular math-rock and ‘80s-inflected synth pop, as proficient at bittersweet clap-alongs (‘E+e’) as they are at instrumental wig-outs (‘1993’), sometimes in the same three-minute song (‘Gorilla King’).
Clocking in at just 39 minutes, Let It Beep would have been perfect for one side of a C-90 in the old days when home taping was killing music: today, it’s a relatively short but extremely welcome shock to the system, bursting at the seams with interesting ideas and infectious melodies.
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