1968 – Royal Bastards
No Profit Recordings – 2025
Rock, Stoner, Psych, Garage, Doom
Rated: ****
The amount of albums released on a daily basis is insane. Which means the prospect of being heard by the cabal, isn’t huge. There is so much to choose from and so little time. And on some level I hope that the HiVe and all those other sites somehow contribute a tiny bit to the possibility for great albums to get picked up. Even if perhaps a little later then on the day they were released. For Royal Bastards by 1968 was released by No Profit Recordings back in June. But it has gotten nowhere near the amount of attention it deserves.
1968 is a stoner metal band from Cheshire, England, active since 2013. They made the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2017, thanks to all your votes, with their album Ballads of The Godless. After that we also mentioned Salvation, If You Need… on Stoner HiVe. But they have much more that deserve your attention. And their newest is called Royal Bastards, blends their grating riffs with melodic vocals, psychedelic elements and loads of genre-crossing influences…
Standby opens the count with a voice snippet counting till the groove can crash down on you and the dynamic vocals whisk you away on the journey. The perfect opening track does a lot, and Standby does even more. The atmosphere is allowed to come into its own, extend and whirl around you as the vocals turn ever more frantic. Endgame balances those screams with clean melodies and some haunting key-work. Jawmelter, does what it is named for, raw and unpredictable, the rhythms all over the place and the vocals as manic as they come. Volatile is another word one can use for many of the 1968 songs. But bluesy Scorched Earth, the rich and melodic Softly Spoken and the epic closer Merlin with tis flute, keys and dramatic finale offer something grander, bolder and creative. Offering insights into the wild minds of the Royal Bastards... errrr... 1968 four…
And all that manages to creep out through your speakers, does not creep at all… It lunges out, grabs you by the throat and drags you through a kaleidoscopic minefield of riffs, roars, and raspy soul. It’s brash, it’s bizarre and it gives zero damns about fitting into any genre box. One minute your floating on a psychedelic cloud, the next you’re getting body-slammed by a doom riff the size of a steamboat. Indeed, 1968 aren’t blending styles, they’re colliding with them at relentless speed, and walking away from the wreckage with a mad man’s grin. It’s dirty. It’s glorious. It’s a fever dream that you want experience over and over…
(Written by JK)
