100 Greatest Songs of the 2010’s #65 – Royal Headache – Psychotic Episode

arcticreviewsblog

Released : 2011

There is a journey for most punk bands that almost ends by hitting a wall of frustration: limitations to the musical possibilities, of the mindsets of those who call themselves fans, or of the width of social discourse culture will these days allow.

Royal Headache experienced all these things in their decade of existence before splitting up, much to people’s lamentation. As close as Australia has got in recent times to the primacy of Detroit’s Protomartyr, the Sydney quartet released two albums, the latter, High being met with almost critical rapture.

Psychotic Episode however is from their rougher and readier eponymous debut and is very nearly perfection. On it singer Tim “Shogun” Wall channels anxiety and dysfunction to a background which recalls the positive punk sound of the early 80’s which formed the prelude to hardcore, amongst other splinters.

Published by arcticreviewsblog

Hi, my name is Andy & I live in Leeds, in northern England. I've been writing about music for more than ten years. My work outside of this blog is featured on Live4ever and Contact Music.