ROYAL THUNDER
Rebuilding The Mountain SPINEFARM
Emotionally wrought majesty from Atlanta’s rock alchemists
Royal Thunder have undergone a spectacular rebirth
IT’S BEEN A long five years, and Royal Thunder have got the scars to prove it. In the aftermath of their last album, Wick, the Atlanta trio broke apart, but they’ve dragged themselves back, reinvigorated and with a marked maturity to their sound on Rebuilding The Mountain. This much is clear from the second the album begins with slow-burner Drag Me. Glittering, spacey and ambient, with Evan DiPrima’s sparse percussion and swathes of warmth from frontwoman Mlny Parsonz’s gorgeous vocal melodies, it’s a curious choice for a first track in that it’s practically a ballad, but it works artfully. From its gentle opening, with an undulating tempo like an irregular heartbeat, it gathers speed as it swells, soars and then subsides before bleeding into the excellent The Knife. The first single from the record, it’s pure Royal Thunder: ragged, bluesy hard rock somewhere between Graveyard and Greta Van Fleet, with Mlny’s magnificently gritty voice always the anchor.