Theatre Royal’s Oliver Burgess is torn. Past and future, joy and despair, contentment and frustration, growing up or growing old. These conflicting emotions and a sense of duality permeates Theatre Royal’s latest offering, and the opening track, ‘The Past is Always Gone’ encapsulates these elements perfectly. An uptempo, jovial sounding intro gives way to a brooding chorus that in turn bursts into a fiery chorus. they’ve lost none of their pop nouse, but the guitars are louder and Burgess sings with a newfound passion, and the fact the album’s first track surges past the six-minute mark is indicative of the evolution between this, their third album and its predecessors.
Why don’t we take it as it comes? Because the past is always gone / and the future’s not for us to see / and I don’t know what you mean to me,’ Burgess muses. It’s from this crossroads he casts an eye over the world and his life and finds he doesn’t know where he is. It’s relatable, and a portion of the album’s appeal derives from its humanity. ‘We Don’t Know Where We Are’ is a complete package, though, the lyrics tied to some cracking tunes and packed with glorious melodies.
Single release ‘Here She Comes’ is a jangly summer pop classic, but it’s played with an urgency that gives it more punch than is commonplace for a breezy beat tune, and ‘Doubt’, another single release, has a Richard Hawley kind of vibe, and blends nostalgia with contemporary introspection that means instead of falling to dewy-eyed reminiscence, has a real resonance.
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Bittersweet tangs flavour each song on the album, and it’s testament to the quality of the song-writing that each and every one of them is single standard, and continually find them flexing new musical muscles. The Smiths-like jangle of ‘What Was that Sound?’ finds the opening lines reprised as the kick up the tempo to a surging final chorus, and ‘French Riviera 1988’ again dashes the golden glow of nostalgia with some gritty images and a thumping rhythm section that powers it along nicely. ‘Running on the Spot’ again cuts loose without losing any of the all-important hooks or melody.
Closer ‘Ripple’ is an obvious counterpart to ‘The Past is Always Gone’, a slow-building anthem that drips melancholy laced with optimism. Understated and moving, it’s a perfect conclusion to an album that’s hard to fault, and most certainly Theatre Royal’s best to date.
Theatre Royal Online
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