The Golden Republic might hate me for this article.
Now, they really shouldn’t. Everything following is written from a place of great affection for a hard-working rock band. These guys from Missouri have been shopping their brand of Ameri-can blues-rock around for quite some time now, mostly touring as the supporting act for more popular foreign ensembles. Unfortunately, as much as it absolutely pains me to admit, I really only liked them before they signed to a major label.
I know, I know. Why slap the most obnoxious critique on the planet to a band I actually like? The story goes like this: I saw them open for Idlewild years ago under a different name. Back then they were The People. I was pleasantly surprised to witness an opening act that seemed to have a chance of success. At least, lead singer Ben Grimes’ sculpted faux-hawk hair showed great promise. Upon leaving the theater that evening, I purchased their homemade disc, entitled The Basement Recordings. I proceeded to hear nothing of the band for about three years. Over that amount of time, The Basement Recordings and its six roughly-cut tunes grew strongly on me. “I Do” makes revenge sound downright groovy as much it showcases killer guitar thump-ing, while “Robots” tells the tale of tragic superficiality without sounding cliché.
Onwards to 2005. While getting excited to see personal messiah/guitar-hero Graham Coxon, I googled his opening act, The Golden Republic. It was revealed to me that they were The People, v 2.0. Wonder of wonders, that dog-and-pony outfit now had a contract with Astralwerks, and had released a proper full-length. Oh, what triumph I felt—my little band had done good. I pur-chased the disc, excited to hear my favorite songs under the benefit of funding and nicer equip-ment. I was destined to be disappointed. These songs lacked an edge, Grimes’ voice was with-out its nasal signature, and there were way too many guitar lines crammed on any single track. For example, the new mixing of “I Do” reworked and dubbed “Not My Kind,” had gone from gritty indie tune to overly compressed nothing-burger. My mini-anthem turned into a standard FM rocker. Punchy versus bland. Basement versus studio.
So in essence, I am telling you to listen to The Golden Republic—but only when they were The People. Buy their stuff, but only the early demos instead of the actual album they spent time working on. Sorry, Ben Grimes and company. The basement sometimes has better acoustics than you think.
[buy stuff here]