52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #46

Royal Thunder – Crooked Doors

(Relapse Records, 2015)

Buy the album here

Moderate rock is not where I often find myself. When people suggest a hard rock band to me I usually imagine being bored to death by later Foo Fighters albums, or contemplate the fact that Creed actually existed. This is not necessarily a sensible reaction as I love The Colour and the Shape and Creed really did exist, but these are the thoughts I overcame to first listen to Royal Thunder's debut album, CVI. It's a solid album that wears its bluesy American classic rock influences on its sleeve, but perhaps relies on the incredible range of vocalist and bassist Mlny Parsonz more than innovative songwriting. Still, I was impressed enough to be excited for their 2015 follow up, Crooked Doors, and the band made a classic classic rock album. It's direct, focused, passionate, and beautifully written.

If anything, Royal Thunder tone down the harder aspects of their rock on this release, favouring intricate details over the middling riffs of much of CVI. Memories of Soundgarden's Superunknown are conjured by the subtle shifts in tone, the variety of instrumentation, and the mixture of big riffs, portentous strumming, and gentle lead work. Band founder and guitarist Josh Weaver seems to have adopted a “less is more” approach to his contributions, and every note hits its mark while also providing Mlny's awesome and beautiful vocals the platform they deserve. Newcomer Evan DiPrima on drums and percussion provides a lighter touch and a breadth of tone that amplifies the emotional squeeze of songs like “Floor” and “Glow”.

“Squeeze” is the best way I can find to describe the feeling this album creates as it cascades through songs of friendship, heartbreak, and emotional strength and weakness. It's vein-bursting emotional intensity; love songs that take you back to your happiest and darkest moments, simultaneously hoping to relive them and crush them into dust. This dichotomy is crystallised in the album's unsure and beautifully honest closing song couplet: “The Bear I” and “The Bear II”. The first song contains all the strength and self respect needed to choose your own path when love is pulling you the other way, while the second admits the mark that separation can leave on any of us. These sparse piano-led closers are the admission that our passions are perhaps only a disguise for the fragility of human need, freedom, and loneliness.

It's a painfully beautiful moment on the album, but Crooked Doors' true heart and strength is found in the incredible run of songs from “The Line” to “One Day”. Each song in this middle passage has me searching for superlatives with which to adorn the band, continually contradicting myself on which song is the best, and failing to fully believe that Mlny Parsonz can be that good. It's a singing performance that leaves me in tears, and one for which I can find no comparison. From the moment she tears in to the fast-paced opening riff of “The Line” it feels like a singer and a band who have committed to leaving everything of themselves on this record. Her voice soars through the chorus; her note-perfect screams of “round and round they're twisting that screw” taking you to dizzying heights of emotion. The tight control of “Forgive Me Karma” and its eery opening give way to an epic hard rock lead guitar crescendo which Mlny then wrestles back with siren-like gentility and an insistent bass line. “Glow” is less immediate but rewards you with a furious build of lead guitar to more vocal excellence and some direct, headbang-worthy riffing, while “Ear On The Fool” is a hypnotic journey through confusion with Mlny providing her own backing vocals, and spinning us in circles the whole time. This run of breathtaking songs concludes with the bittersweet wisdom of “One Day”:

life set me free and cut me down the middle
I'm stuck in between it
don't put me back together

At the very moment you feel like the song has run its fairly obvious course, it turns on you and propels you in to the most cutting moment of the album. Whispers surround Mlny's agonised screams as she fights with a desire for freedom and the longing to stay with what's known and loved:

I don't know what I should do
maybe I should try
but I don't wanna die
I don't wanna die
here......

The pain that is felt in this moment embodies the passion and honesty that make this record anything but moderate rock. Crooked Doors takes from blues, classic rock, grunge and gives us back an emotional journey less constructed from recorded instruments, and more forged out of strength of feeling, a sense of identity, and a willingness to give everything of oneself. That journey has thankfully continued on Royal Thunder's latest record, Wick, and in venues wherever they play.