With their debut album, Australian punk rock band Royal Headache, turned quite a lot of heads with their raw and gritty tunes. Listening to their music, you can vividly picture the band playing in a garage or a basement packed with wild rebellious teenagers head-banging and spilling beer over each other. It's been four years since their first album, and the band has had a lot of internal tensions, but they've finally released their second album High, and I love it.
From start to finish, the album is packed with raw energy. The loud and rough guitar chord progressions and strong vocals would even get a 90 year old grandma up on her feet, leaping about like a madwoman. And of course, since they are Royal Headache, all the ten songs on the album are relentlessly catchy. The title-track - High, in particular, refused to leave my head for quite some time. The drums and guitar make a hard hitting combination, sometimes with keyboards added in the mix, and the songwriting is quite strong, but what I feel really takes the center-stage are the vocals. There is both, passion and emotion, in Shogun's voice, really prominent on certain tracks, like Another Day and Love Her If I Tried.
The band has also diversified in terms of songwriting. Apart from the hard-rocking tunes, there are also some equally amazing slower ones (Wouldn't You Know, Carolina). The lyrics too show a little variety, although most of the album is based on love. On the opening track, My Own Fantasy, Shogun sings about how he used to fantasize about the fame and "tons of girls" which he thought came as a part of being in the rock scene, but now that he is in it, he realizes how different things are from his expectations. On the other hand, there is Garbage, built around a sick bass line, containing hilariously offensive lyrics like "You're not punk, you're just scum".
High is the kind of album that would make The Ramones and Sex Pistols, proud to see what has become of the genre that they so passionately created. I strongly recommend you give the album a listen.
Favorite songs: High, My Own Fantasy, Need You, Another Day
Rating: 8.5/10
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