Brighton punk duo Regal Cheer have unleashed their second album Quite Good. From Manchester Punk Festival to a co-headlining tour with Toodles And The Hectic Pity, the two-piece have firmly established themselves as ones to watch in the UK DIY scene.
The first line of opener ‘Cold Case’ serves as a manifesto for the record as a whole: a screech of guitar feedback before shouting ‘I don’t trust that you ever cared at all!’ It’s the soundtrack to a broken down relationship, one that you thought would be with you until the end. It’s regret and resentment echoing into the empty space where trust, love and loyalty used to be.
Quite Good builds on the shouty, scrappy sound of their first record Cans to create a sharper, more mature sound. It’s got a little more polish, but still has a fundamentally DIY sound. Like on their debut, guitarist Max Cleworth and Harry Menear share vocal duties, both of them sticking to a raw, quintessentially punk style.
The album is just shy of 20 minutes cover to cover, made up of a dozen bitesize ragers that are the perfect length for our social media-rotted attention spans. It’s a whistlestop tour through fuzzy power chords, bitter lyrics and relentlessly driving drums.
Lyrically, Regal Cheer lean towards minimalism. ‘All The Best’ is a cathartic song dripping with sarcasm – directed to an ex or former friend, it includes a minute of just screaming ‘Whatever happens, I wish you all the best!’ Short, razor-sharp and to the point. But there’s a poetic turn of phrase here and there that lets you see behind the blunter punk side.
Plenty of punk-influenced bands go for that classic wall-of-sound ‘turn it up to 11’ approach, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But Regal Cheer know when to slow down and let things sink in for a bit, like on interlude track ‘The Queue’ featuring Soot Sprite (whose debut LP comes out later this month). Then you have songs like ‘Slight Pizzazz’ and ‘Crumbs’ where the guitar work gets a touch of midwest emo and leans into a nostalgic almost wistful tone.
Closing track ‘Cyclical’ is a last-minute standout. It’s existential and reluctantly hopeful, asking ‘how long have we all got left? How long until it all resets?’. This is the new beginning, the next step you take after that friendship or relationship has gone.
In summary, don’t let the two-and-a-half stars on the cover art fool you. Quite Good is authentic, cohesive and, funnily enough, quite good.