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The Royal Beat Conspiracy | Gala Galore

This is a conspiracy that shouldn't be kept a secret!
CD, Bad Afro/Suburban

Tekst: Tijs Heesterbeek

Publicatiedatum: 08 mei 2001

One characteristic feature of the postmodern society is its interest in diversity, pluralism and history. Postmodernist architects, painters and philosophers of the early 1980's reacted against the modernist beliefs in progression, which came up with the avant-garde in the 1920's and presented a reinterpretation of traditional life. Postmodernism dominates the culture nowadays: we allow other (ethnic) cultures in our society; have a greater interest in our past and new (fashion-, music-, etc.) styles emerge almost every year. In music, this interest in history for instance stretches from the Rock 'n' Roll of the fifties and the Beat of the early sixties (garage-punkbands like The Hives), the seventies psychedelics and early metal (stonerrock) to the mid-eighties in today's dance and pop. Sometimes an act comes along which single-handedly represents this postmodern eclecticism. Here I think of acts like: Moby, The Beastie Boys or even Madonna. Now I can add another act to this list: The Royal Beat Conspiracy. On 'Gala Galore' the Swedish quartet mixes almost every musical style from the past five decades in 50 minutes and does this pretty convincingly as well. The CD starts with an Oriental tune which is almost immediately cut off by a glamrock 'n' roll-lick that defines the song 'She's A Pretty Thing'. The second song 'The Chameleon's Changing Color' is a western movie-score in the tradition of Ennio Morricone. 'Hollywood Fever' is a rock 'n' roll song, which reminded me of The Shadows. 'Meet Me In The Morning' is a collision between a mellow Pink Floyd song, the nasal voice and mouth organ of Bob Dylan and the Orchestral Manoeuvres of ELO. You will hear some real 70's disco in 'Disco Boy' (with a flirt to 'Louie Louie' by Richard Berry), soul-stomping in 'The Flame Of Love', glamrock in 'It's Not Enough' and even two ballads called 'The Sweetest Love' and 'Spend It All On You'. TRBC does it all, and it never gets over their heads. Sometimes helped by The Royal Horns (the horn section which assists Ike Turner on his European tour) TRBC adopts every style and pours an own garagerock-sound over it. You could say it's the more soulful brother of The Hellacopters. On the five-track EP 'Shake What You Have Got!' they continue this magic. Sometimes sounding like a bigband (the title song), playing the blues ('Mean Mary Lou') or reminding me of The Doors (Dirty Old Song). It sounds like the four guys got their record collection, melted it and poured it into glasses they drank before writing these songs. With these CD's I've got my soundtrack for this summer. This is a conspiracy that shouldn't be kept a secret!

http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/the-royal-beat-conspiracy/gala-galore/1299/
Meer The Royal Beat Conspiracy op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/the-royal-beat-conspiracy