Royal Edinburgh Music

Despite a name which could lead the casual observer to dismiss them as a chamber music project from one of the capital’s posh schools, this Edinburgh crew (that bit is accurate) make a sound which would have the ruling classes running off in fear of insurrection.
Not that the sounds on this three-tracker are particularly unworldly. The title title track has a fairly standard opening of jangly guitar until fulsome percussion kicks in underpinning a fractured female vocal. Closer ‘Joey’ sports suitably tortured vocals subsumed by crashingly unsubtle guitars.But ‘Glass Ghost’ may be the stand-out here – again, delicate lead guitar work trails an oncoming percussive onslaught, which in turn give way to distinctive vocals, like a intelligible Bjork, with the urgent tone of Lena Lovich. It’s hard to pin down one distinguishing feature of this band – it’s the vocals, oh wait, it’s the bass – then the dirty guitar work burrows its way through. Not one for the Holyrood garden party, we suspect.