CNR

This is the long awaited and speculated upon collaboration between Opeth guitarist Michael Akerfeldt and Porcupine Tree frontman and solo artist Steven Wilson, and considering the history, it hàs been a long time coming.

Down, who still play their typical mix of sludge metal and classic rock, prefer to take their time. The band started already back in 1991, but The Purple is only their fourth album to date. The difficulty in judging this album is that I started to like it after quite some effort to dig and try to find interesting elements In the beginning it sounded rather typical and my initial impression was that few things were going on.

When I listened to this album, I couldn’t shake of the impression that this band, or it’s music, has certain similarities with what a band like Fall Out Boy brings.  Do they take themselves seriously, or is it their intention to put some humor in their music? The music of Royal Republic can best be described as hard rock with a good dose of punk thrown in, but brought in a rather radio- friendly way.