Royal Angst - Fuchsia Motel (review)
The anthemic rawness of grunge gets revisited, with meticulous song-crafting and emotional weight that lives up to Royal Angst’s name.
Score: 8/10
For a genre that’s mostly riff-based and structurally predictable, grunge’s DNA is still present today. It helped further cement the quiet verse/loud chorus method into the global palate, normalized undisguised lyrics of transgressive psychological and social issues into mainstream music, and advanced the idolization for untrained musicians with a raw sound. The debut album by the RGV’s Royal Angst revisits all of it, with themes of self-doubt explored over the heavy sludge of guitars and drums. After multiple lineup changes and years of live experience, Royal Angst’s Jackie Rose has scaled the band back to a mostly-solo project, but scaled up the compositional and studio efforts.
The blueprint of the genre doesn’t hold back this album. There are plenty of added elements that enrich the songs — the epic speed-ups and slow-downs of Sick, the electro-squeals of Killing Time, the foreboding piano of Clownfish. Rose’s slightly scratchy Courtney Love-tinged voice gets enhanced as well (fuzzed-up for distorted screams or double tracked to add mystique) but the authentic angst and fury stay intact. There is no shortage of heavy songs and cynical sentiments in this 52-minute full length, but some of the best tracks are surprisingly scenic.
In Simon Says, plodding guitar loops and snare rolls hobble through as Rose reflects on the pressure for a perfect body. “Simon says crave to be thinner, Simon says skip out on dinner,” Rose sings in her downtrodden manner until the song’s bridge comes crashing in with her loud response. “And it makes me feel like we dont matter! Makes me feel ugly on the outside!”
The sludge of grunge always seemed to be washed away in MTV Unplugged sessions for a pleasantly warmer performance, so it’s no surprise that the brooding of the acoustic-infused Senseless hits so well. Chorused guitar solos and powerful mid-tempo drums also trudge through the darkness. All of it adds emotional weight to the straightforward lyrics of doubt. “Yea, I’m senseless and insecure, cause I know you’ll never stay.”
The highpoint of the album is Lover Girl, a six-minute suite with eerie quiet sections that build up creeping seductive tension, and then release it with heavier passages. It’s a smokey hypnotic experience with hand drums, snarling guitar lines, and a heart-pounding conclusion. Unlike the narrative of the rest of the track list, Rose is the person in power, and it manifests in her loneliness turning to obsessive and domineering thoughts. “Sometimes I want to shrink you down to my size. Put you in my pocket. Sometimes I want to collect your eyes into my hands straight from their sockets.”
Between all the lyrics of rejection, alienation, and anger, the darkest moment comes in Home Sweet Home. It is full of gut-wrenching imagery of a violent father (“Daddy’s punching out mama’s teeth”) and a neglectful mother (“She’d rather get it in. . . leave me to raise my siblings.”) The song has a hooky and immediately satisfying riff, but the intensity of the matter still seeps through. “When I hear that crash and that boom I run to my room. I stay in one corner. I don't make a move.”
The album works well as a celebration of a by-gone era, but also as an opening statement for an experienced musician who is now creating impressive studio output. Royal Angst is focused, meticulous, and expressive, living up to the name. Sometimes it’s ponderous, sometimes it’s intense, but present throughout the runtime is the grime and grit that can only come from the motel of an artist’s mind.
Score: 8/10
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