Is there hope for rock n roll? YES.
The universal truth that rock will never die has been brought to the forefront by Los Angeles-based band YOUNG ROYALS. Solid like a Les Paul, memorably melodic, combined with the sonic bombast of all that is heavy, YOUNG ROYALS is a band that packs an album’s worth of tunes worthy of your ears, IPod, car stereo or any preferred listening device of the 21st century.
On their debut album ‘Day of Truths’, YOUNG ROYALS have metamorphosed from a group of tight technicians into a soulful, mind-blowing powerhouse, and in the process, the band has not lost any of its tightness. It is positively electrifying. YOUNG ROYALS have definitely become a band to see live, not only to crank on car stereos while breaking the law.
After the first few chords of And It Rains, the album’s blistering and beautiful opener, a veritable arena anthem, it is readily apparent the feeling of walking the line between hope and desperation. Happy to Know This, the album’s second song comes out swinging like Babe Ruth pointing at the right field wall, bottom of the ninth, full count. With a hook that could catch JAWS, the song’s Lennonesque play-on-words chorus, combined with the drive of Sabbath’s Paranoid, you’d never notice the odd time meter, because it feels so right and real.
YOUNG ROYALS do a hard rock cover of A Day in the Life that really illuminates life in the post-industrial military complex that the original’s lush, upper-crust orchestration, even for all of its delectable beauty, subtracted from in terms of the lyrics matching the music. Even though YOUNG ROYALS arrangement of the classic Beatles song does not seem to have the dance floor on its mind, it could easily be remixed into a groove-laden, hook-heavy club sensation of many kinds, including Gothic hangs.
It would be impossible not to hear a single in practically every song on YOUNG ROYALS ‘Day of Truths’: Color the Sky, with its aching despair of a systematic disordering of the senses, which makes the melancholy of nostalgia into an exquisite and expensive euphoria, Put the Bodies in the Box with its no quarter, bone-crushing bliss that penetrates destruction and reveals it to be transformation a bar at a time, Shallow, with its mercurial swagger tinged with the cynicism of Kurt Cobain, but without the victim-hood, contains the best elements of rock that you've heard in a long time. YOUNG ROYALS is exhilarating because whether or not the band has sold its souls, they play in the spirit of the blues, and the blues comes through them soulfully, especially on the scorching, blues-shouting, metallic rave-up, Nobody Knows.
This is the future of rock and roll as we know it.
SOME HISTORY-
YOUNG ROYALS formed in 2003 when drummer Josh Howser tracked down singer-songwriter/guitarist Eric Bradley at his day job demanding that world hear his songs and riffs! “Get your gear together! We need to do this!” Said Josh, on a fateful spring afternoon. “The world needs us, the rock we create, and the honesty it conveys.”
Feeling humbled by this request, Eric grabbed his weaponry of love; a Les Paul and a Marshall half stack. As soon as the pair began to assemble the songs and line-up that would make up this new band, Alice in Chains founder Jerry Cantrell quickly tapped the duo to complete his band for his solo endeavors. It was through Jerry that the two met the bassist and fellow rock warrior Adam Stanger. Many shows, some recordings, and a few tours followed.
While touring with Mr. Cantrell, Eric had come into his own as a songwriter and this new band would be known as MELT. By the beginning of 2006, AIC had reformed, leaving this talented ensemble to start down their own path. Neophyte indie label MOTOR AVENUE RECORDS quickly recognized the talent, experience and power of this new band. A full-length album commenced recording in the spring of 2006, and by the fall, DAY OF TRUTHS, the debut of this new band was near completion.
A few minor details are not to be left out: the revolving/coveted second guitar slot finally being filled by the most royal Jason Saracco, a noble lad, with a rock guitar vocabulary unmatched by his predecessors; and some other band claiming the name MELT! At the discovery of this fateful truth, Eric recalled that as a 13 year-old, he and his gang of friends terrorized the suburbs of Chicago on their BMX bikes, stealing beer out of garages, hopping fences to take a moonlite dip in the community pool, being chased out of young girls’ houses by pissed off dads… all to the soundtrack of real rock n roll. This little gang had a name, the YOUNG ROYALS!
And as it was, so it is… a fitting name for a band that makes you remember why you wanted to turn it up in the first place!
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