Royal Trux - Platinum Tips + Ice Cream
Back in their late 80s/early 90s heyday, Royal Trux were legendary for their shambolic live shows, drug intake and a series of experimental, heroically lo-fi albums. Led by Neil Hagerty and - sometime face of Calvin Klein - Jennifer Herrema, the band dissolved in 2000. Platinum Tips + Ice Cream is the first Trux album in seventeen years. Recorded live at two shows, the press release says the songs are presented in “new, live, unrehearsed” form. And the “unrehearsed” may be a big factor in why this album is so, so disappointing.
A live album should capture the spirit of the live show and transport you to the venue. This does neither. The sound quality takes me back to my tape trading days, sounding like a fourth generation copy of a tape recorded surreptitiously by a bootlegger. There is seemingly no interaction between band and audience.
It ain’t all bad. The voices are great with Herrema’s a bratty Jagger-meets-Valley Girl snarl and Hagerty’s a sub-Iggy sneery drawl. At times, the fuzzed out, fucked up guitars border on brilliant, there’s some cracking drumming and there’s some decent songs struggling to be heard. The Mary Chain-meets-MC5-meets-White Stripes blues-punk-noise deserves better than this.
4/10
