Royal Republic: Weekend Man

Swedish rockers keep it simple but scintillating

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There’s an art to simplicity, and Sweden’s Royal Republic are naturals in this respect.

Weekend Man is the four-piece’s third album and is stuffed with straightforward, pumping rock’n’roll anthems with bands like Supersuckers as signposts. With guitarist Hannes Irengård chopping out the rhythms, and Adam Grahn offering the vocal punch, the band never let up, steaming in with fiery Here I Come (There You Go) and Walk!, and building from there. Like all the best bands of this type, Royal Republic sound like they’ve strolled into the studio, plugged in and just gone for one take.

The freshness and thrust on Uh Huh and Any Given Sunday is undeniable, the boys never messing around, while keeping the pace at a scorching level. Every track is quickfire, with no extended virtuosity, just a case of getting in, making a mark and moving on.

In this respect, the album is old school, climaxing with the gyrating_ American Dream_, as Royal Republic nod respectfully towards The Hellacopters. The style is throwaway, but you’ll keep coming back.

Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021