Gratifyingly this sounded just as I’d hoped. The cover looked hopeful, solo artist Dean Robb pictured against a white background – if he had worn skinny tie on him it you could mistake for and early 80s classic indie LP. Furthermore, I’m a sucker for a good artist matched with a good title – The 12 track Royal Commission Into Rock ‘n Roll is one of the best I’ve seen. And there are some great track names too!
Dean deliberately uses a cheap microphone, second hand kit and a four track recorder. The result is a rough-edged post-punk sound which does become a little wearing when listening to the album in one go. However, for one or two tracks at a time (and several tracks have been out as singles) it works pretty well.
The melodic opener ‘Emotional Support Australian’ is my favourite on ’Into Rock ‘n Roll’. It is a riff driven tune over a simple drum machine beat which is the template for the rest of the album. A bit more jarring slightly distorted vocals is track 2 'Buildings With Low Self-Esteem' which could have been a hit it 1979 with the more motorik track 3 ‘Motel Surveillance’ as its B-side! ‘Last Known Good Configuration’ begins rather heavily before a more poppy chorus. It was around this point that I realised the songs so far (4 minutes average) are quite long and the singular drum beat could do with breaking up with a few fills and changes and difference in bpm between them to keep things interesting, 'The Song You Can Play At Home' therefore was when the album sagged for me.
Track 6 ‘Gated Community Radio’ sees a small change in direction with more attention to variety in the mix with isolated guitar and bass sections. I can hear echoes of Magazine and The Fall and various US bands for the late 80s here. ‘Red Light District Library’ take this further, Devo influences maybe? ‘March #23’ definitely has Mark E Smith influence all over it, amplified by the distorted vocal (and it does go on a bit!).
‘Hard To Defend’ is mixed more clearly and leads well into the single ‘The Magyar Dancer’ (maybe a reference to one of the politicians who were successful in the recent Hungarian election?). By now the sound of Royal Commission has become well established in my head – riff driven guitar and bass over drum machine with lyrics that are not always clear enough to understand. This is then challenged by ‘Don’t Go Then’ which feels like a left over from something else, a nice poppy song but with cleaner guitar accompaniment that has an almost Lemonheads feel about it. The LP closes with John Doe #3, a noodly guitar instrumental that did nothing for me.
The sound of Royal Commission lies in the middle of Venn Diagram of: · Home made Indie lo-fi alt-rock · Demos made for the band to listen to · The third on the bill solo artist that only 20% of the punters are in the room for and half of them are talking that you notice the odd hook or melody that you like.
It all works in each of the parts but for me I found myself yearning for them all to sum to be much more, craving for better production (and I accept that maybe that’s not the point for Dean!), a band, more variety in the drums, the odd bit of keyboard? All that said several tracks could slot into my playlists and I’d recommend giving Into Rock ‘n Roll a listen.