There’s an exuberance to Welcome To Grime Town, the new album from Swedish Garage dwellers Grand Royale, that’s absolutely impossible to resist. Add that joie de vivre to a superior songwriting technique, a willingness to experiment and a fearlessness when it comes to execution, and you’d appear to have the perfect hard rock blueprint for success.
It’s not quite so cut and dried, of course, but really, as you sit back and wallow in the sublime London-pub-meets-NYC-dive chic of Run Officer Run (which features superb guest vocals from Helen Vilsson) it’s hard not to feel that you’re in the presence of, if not greatness, then at least four blokes who are very, very good at what they do.
It’s that confidence in their own abilities that probably leads to the exuberance, of course, but it’s not an exuberance that points to arrogance, merely a shared joy in the fact that they are able to walk into a studio and come up with the goods time and time again. When they take their foot off the pedals for even a little while – the start of the track Augury, maybe – the temptation to dissipate the momentum already built up is tempered by the intensity of the delivery, as the song explodes just past half way into an admirable guitar freak out. The song ends with a triumphant crash, which is balanced by the quietness of the opening of next track Utopia, which lulls the listener briefly before stoving the ears in with another of those crashes before veering off into quasi rockabilly territory.
If this all sounds a little confusing, then certainly in less capable hands such a rapid-fire fusion of moods and ideas could well be just that. But when played by Grand Royale, who know that salvation lies in a well-placed guitar solo, such razor-wire chance taking is rendered entirely safe. These people know what they are doing, don’t you worry about that. Have a listen to the rampantly rambunctious Stark Raving Mad if you don’t believe me…
In the thirty six minutes it takes to play Welcome To Grime Town, you won’t once find yourself looking at your watch wondering what’s for tea, or what’s on the TV tonight. From second one Grand Royale take you by the scruff of the neck, and show you what the phrase ‘good time’ means time and again in no uncertain fashion. And in an age when ‘good times’ are getting scarcer by the day, that’s an important talent to possess. Fantastic, life-affirming stuff.
Welcome to Grime Town releases on March 24th.
Leave A Comment