When you look at the cover artwork for The Royal’s Origins EP, you’re apt to think that The Royal is just another run-of-the-mill metalcore band. Well, you’d be partially correct. The Royal’s music is not particularly groundbreaking, nor are they bringing any new elements to the table, but their Origins EP is a well-crafted piece of metalcore. The time and effort required to break into the metalcore scene as a Dutch band has to be pretty substantial, but The Royal has clearly put in both.
Despite not being incredibly long, Origins is a satisfying twenty minutes of hard-hitting metalcore. I get an I, the Breather vibe at several points throughout the EP, which is, by no means, a bad thing. The instrumentation is tight and polished and the vocals, despite not being particularly varied, work well for the direction The Royal is shooting for. I’m not usually a fan of vocalists that pick one range and stick to it, but I didn’t take issue with Semuel Pisarahu’s delivery. As I mentioned earlier, this EP is not revolutionary, but it’s well done and not a blatant rip-off of any other band in the scene.
Origins is probably the only Dutch release that you’ll come across this year and it’s definitely worth at least one listen. Is it going to reinvent the metalcore genre and leave you questioning all that you thought you knew about music? Probably not. Is it a well-crafted metalcore EP that you should listen to? Absolutely! As an added bonus, the band has made it available for free download, so you have no excuse to not check it out.
Links: Facebook – Download
