Pound for Pound

Royal Trux

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 6, 2000)
• Original Release Date: June 6, 2000
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Drag City
• ASIN: B00004THKQ
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #214,694 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
You never know which Royal Trux you're going to get--and often you get different versions of the band on the same record. Subject to the whims of its two mercurial creators, Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema, RT can either deliver boogie-laden hard-rock guitar workouts or spacy half-finished jams that force the listener to fill in the blanks. Currently a five-piece, they create hard rock much as you might expect a band raised on Neil Young's Crazy Horse and Big Black. The rhythms sway with a hypnotic and lazy gait, the guitars alternate between sweet, bluesy licks and psychotic shocks of distorted overload. No one can sing, but they can all rasp with the reckless abandon of an old blues shouter or anonymous garage-rock screamer. "Deep Country Sorcerer" accesses a free-jazz vibe by its conclusion. "Sunshine and Grease" sounds like an old-time R&B tune being massacred by a punk rock band. There is little middle ground for Royal Trux. You either love their irreverence or wonder what bizarre planet you've accidentally stumbled upon. --Rob O'Connor

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Go lighter on the cheesy riffs next time, guys, June 14, 2000

By A Customer

As much as I love RTX and have followed their incredible evolution since their 3rd album, it seems that they've possibly hit another slump after a string of amazing releases following "Sweet Sixteen," the nadir of their career. Since 98's "Accelerator" all the way up to this year's "Radio Video," RTX have churned out some of their best music ever with the frequency of super-prolific bands like Stereolab, so I was expecting yet another great LP when I heard about "Pound For Pound."

Well. It's OK. Most of the record follows the surprisingly straight-ahead and streamlined (for them) rock of their last 2 albums, but some of it gets bogged down with the same kinda cheezeball wanky riffs that seriously turned me off to "Sweet Sixteen" and parts of "Thank You." "Platinum Tips" is a prime example of RTX's excessive formula actually feeling like too much for once: Hagerty's main guitar lick is repeated over and over throughout the song, and while it's pretty corny, it would be tolerable except that then the bass player comes in with the most hackneyed-sounding riff EVER that made me almost destroy my speakers.

So yeah, "Pound For Pound" is all right; definitely get it cuz the good outweights the gawd-awful, but be prepared to relive some of the nastroid qualities of their Virgin releases that occasionally rear their deformed heads on this one.

If you're new to the Royal Trux get "Cats and Dogs"--it's one of the best albums ever made

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars bloody flower and black sunshine, June 20, 2000

By	marianna rossi (Italy) - See all my reviews

Hey! this record is simply great! Great cover...great titles, great song! It's made of blood, sweat, sunrays on white skin.....Jennifer's voice is sharper and aharper and Neil's voice just great....the choose the harmolodic form (Ornette Coleman rules, ok?)and decide to leave most of their noise sound behind them. positive thoughts and intelligent visions of life and world, strange allucinations, the same acid atmosphere of the past but also melancholy, love of love, love of people, and the most intelligent attitude towards waht's usually thought as"rock'n'roll". I can't find the right words to explain what i feel when i listen to it but I sure say that Pound for Pound is a classic RTX album and as any other RTx album it's different from all the others.... They're genius, simply great in everything,they're the enbodiment of blues and passion, they're what history of rock'n'roll had been waiting for...even though they probably won't never reach the fame of Elvis....they're indipendenti from all, and indipendent it's how they shall remain. wow! see them live! Jennifer's my Heroin! >it's in your blood, it's in your brain, drive them all insane.....

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Houses of the Holy, July 13, 2000

By	Terrill Bravender (Durham, NC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have enjoyed--well, maybe not exactly enjoyed--have listened to Royal Trux--for years, and eagerly await each new CD. This is especially true since they returned to Drag City, stayed clean, and started churning out more and more glorious skronk. Well, as soon as I got home and put on Pound for Pound, I realized that someone at the CD store had accidently slipped in a missing slab of Led Zepplin. This disc must have been recorded on a day that their whiny-screamy-banshee singer, whatever-his-name-is, ate razor blades washed down with Drano to create the gutteral rasps that only accentuate the power of the music. Let's face it, as RTx discs go, this is only rock and roll.

But I like it.