The Royal We

The Royal We were, if I can believe the internet, a band that was formed when Jihae Simmons hot footed it over from the USA to the UK to find a twee pop wonderland - yes - that was enough to have me reaching for the sick bag. But not to judge before hearing I duly took a listen to the songs on My Space and decided that I should get a copy of the LP. Jihae was obviously well informed as she set her target to be Glasgow when coming to the UK - a city that has a rich indiepop history. She duly arrived, had a laugh, formed a band and recorded this record. 8 songs long. Apparently she has since ditched the band to return to America. Either way - this is either an in joke that went too far or a very good piece of fun pop. To my ears it's probably both. The music itself is on the poppy and catchy end of of the indiepop spectrum (with some cheesy glam pop overtones) -calling in references from T Rex, Blondie and it all ends on a cover of Chris Isaacs 'Wicked Game'. This is how I imagined early Dressy Bessy might have sounded had they recorded their first flushes in Glasgow rather than the USA.

Seeing as I am fairly late to the party I can't really form an opinion on whether the band ever intended to be a 'serious' band or not. As I said before you get 20 odd minutes of fun on this record and at the end of the day that's what really matters. I haven't the time or the inclination at the moment to fully try and get what The Royal We were all about. Maybe it was all about the indiepop songs and as that's all I have to judge them on, I'd say they did a pretty good job.