Royal Headache

(What’s Your Rupture?)

Royal Headache’s eponymous debut, reissued stateside after a 2011 release Down Under, strikes with a rugged fury that throws the Goner Records vault straight into Sam Cooke’s Harlem Square Club. It’s a sock hop in tattered T-shirts, kicked off with two-minute “Never Again” – none of Royal Headache‘s 12 tracks come within a furious hook line of three minutes – that premieres in fourth gear. Shouting over shiny guitars and a gut-busting rhythm section, shouter Shogun’s focus stays fixed: “Girls,” “Two Kinds of Love,” and the psychotic episodes both bring. It’s chaos with a solitary break (“Wilson Street”). God save the Queen. (Fri., 10:30pm, Scoot Inn; Sat., 9:15pm, Club de Ville.)

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This article appears in June 1 • 2012.

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