Member Since: 11/6/2005
Band Website: Coming Soon
Band Members: Jonathan Banks - Vocals,
Tom Flanagan - Guitar,
Richard Wales - Drums,
James Gierula- Bass
Influences: Wearing their influences firmly on their sleeve, or more like in a big day-glow t-shirt that says "our influences are:" Royal Vendetta are Leeds' answer to Kasabian, The Cooper Temple Clause and The Music... no hang on they were Leeds' answer to some else already... oh never mind. What is clear is that Royal Vendetta mean business with their sound designed to be danced to rather than moshed. A racing 16-beat hi-hat, pounding guitar riffs and bass lines, menacing synths, a preacher style vocal ala Ian Brown and a copy of Nuts tucked in the back pocket of their jeans. This is music to accompany robbing cars, wander down dimly lit alleys and lobbing pints of piss all over the opposition. Flowers and summer meadows it is not. A soundtrack for an urbanite lad with a mock-manc accent, you know the kind Kasabian have picked up in Leicestershire as you do... sort-tee-daaa. All six tunes here are monsters yanking at their chains and the band stick firmly to their mission to deliver. No deviation for the pop-one or the slower-song, nooo all are right to the point does-what-it-says-on-the-tin stuff. The appeal comes in the adrenalin fuelled excellence of tunes like "Do You All Know Something I Don't?", the Prodigy style synths of "SoothSayer" and the grinding strut of "What You Don't Know Can't Hurt" in which Jonathan Banks' distorted vocal effect clearly has him singing "Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie for you" in a dark ode to the Spring watch presenter... only kidding. Music fashion fascists will point out that Royal Vendetta's ship may well already have sailed but there is enough pomp and belief here to having a winning formula regardless.WORDS BY RICHARD GARNETT, THE LEEDS MUSC SCENE
Sounds Like:
Type of Label: None