Description
Artist – Theatre Royal
Release – A Change Of Weather LP/CD
Side A
1. In Time (3:34)
2. Souvenir (2:54)
3. Welsh Coastal Towns (3:46)
4. Lives Entwined (3:40)
5. Feet First (2:55)
6. Angelina (3:22)
7. If I Fall (3:49)
Side B
1. Feel A Lot Better (2:47)
2. Thrown Up Grown Up (3:10)
3. Never Understood It (2:55)
4. Saturday Son (3:48)
5. Me And You (3:51)
6. Into The River (2:57)
Label – Spinout Nuggets
Cat No. – SN151
Release date – 30th May 2025
Theatre Royal are a Medway-based alternative/indie five-piece who fuse soulfulness with their urgent, harmony-laden storytelling. Once described as like “The Clash playing The Beatles”, the band pride themselves on crafting pop gems and delivering them live at high octane.
Formed from the ashes of The Long Weekend in 2009, the band have released five full length albums, with releases garnering high praise, and songs have consistently been picked up by national radio for airplay (BBC 6 Music, Radio X, Radio 2).
After a much delayed recording process, Theatre Royal return with their 6th album, ‘A Change Of Weather’, now with the permanent addition of saxophone player Chris Kingman, for release in May 2025 on Spinout Nuggets. Thirteen vignettes of hope, loss, joy, uncertainty, sadness and everything in-between.
“I look at my hands and now they’re my father’s”…lead single ‘Welsh Coastal Towns’ rattles along like a family estate taking us to beach holidays of the past and back again to bitter coffee dawns of the present. A battered vivid postcard of lives layered on lives.
With its infectious “bye bye, never gonna say goodbye” chorus, ‘Souvenir’ is Wilko Johnson guitar chops fighting with three minutes of Stax soul pop. Booker T & The MGs bass lines on a DIY budget, with pop hooks galore.
‘Lives Entwined’ is perhaps the emotional heartbeat of the album. A deeply personal reflection on memory and loss, with a soaring chorus.
‘A Change Of Weather’ takes the listener on a journey through life’s highs and lows, textured with harmonies and chiming guitars. Orchestral flourishes adorn tracks such as ‘In Time’, with those same violins adding ragtime Americana to ‘Angelina’ and controlled chaos to the cacophony of album end point, ‘Into The River’..
Limited to 500 copies on vinyl (also on CD and DL).
Line Up:
Oliver Burgess – Vocals, Guitars
Robbie Wilkinson – Guitar, Vocals
Brendan Esmonde – Bass Guitar, Vocals
Jonathan Gibbs – Drums, Vocals
Christopher Kingman – Sax, Vocals
Notes:
Produced, recorded and mastered by Jim Riley at Ranscombe Studios, Rochester.
Published by Spinout Music.
