You know the way Myspace has those genre descriptions on the band pages? Well Ribbons‘ Royals would fit right well under “Melodramatic Popular Song” perfectly. I have to admit, we received this into the State office late last year but no-one ended up reviewing it and it sat in a pile of CDs for months until I got an email from Osaka, the superb Irish-based label who released Royals last week. They had sent me a kindly reminder about the release and (by Jove!) am I glad they did. Royals is perfect music for right now, an pop on the cusp of classical experimentalism with rich orchestration, a Mercury Rev-like force and a touch of spectral ambiance.
The man behind the band is Jherek Bischoff formerly of The Dead Science, Xiu Xiu and Parenthetical Girls and it’s the latter that makes the most sense in terms of familarity but it’s still much more varied and polychromatic. Bischoff is also a producer who has worked on Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’s critically acclaimed Etiquette and Parenthetical Girls’ Safe As Houses.
Check out the two album tracks. ‘The Last and Least Likely’ is a rocking pastoral tune with a heaving string section echoing a distinct melody from Lord of the Rings (in my head) while ‘Children’s Song’ is a positively catchy indie tune with nuanced parts that shift it above and beyond the norm. Royals is superb.
Ribbons – The Last and Least Likely
[Buy it]
