Description
Label Review.
2019 album. Also available on CD.
Our Overview.
Eighteen years after their last studio album ‘Pound For Pound’, Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema are back having first reunited in 2015 for shows and a live album. Hagerty started out in Pussy Galore with Jon Spencer (later of the Blues Explosion) before electing to pursue his own musical vision with his girlfriend Herrema. They released their first album as Royal Trux in 1988, a self-titled and low-fi affair which attracted very little attention. Their second: ‘Twin Infinitves’ (1990) saw them head in a much more experimental direction and it would not be wrong to say there isn’t another record that sounds like it with lashings of heavy reverb and laser gun sounds.
The early 90s saw the duo making more accessible music with their next albums ‘Royal Trux’ and ‘Cats And Dogs’. The latter saw the introduction of a proper rhythm section on some tracks and after four albums on the Chicago based label Drag City scored a major label deal with Virgin Records. Teaming up with Neil Young’s producer David Briggs, the group turned in ‘Thank You’ (1995). Despite creating a solid rock record and expanding their fanbase they remained on the cult fringes and quickly fell out with Virgin who put zero effort into promoting their next album ‘Sweet Sixteen’ (1997) probably not helped by the cover artwork which featured a toilet bowl filled with offal!
The duo returned to Drag City (Domino in the UK) who issued another three albums and a couple of EPs between 1998-2000 before Neil and Jennifer split and continued on their own projects - Hagerty with The Howling Hex and Herrema attempted to keep the Trux split alive with her new group RTX. They finally got back together under the Royal Trux banner in August 2015 and after a couple of years of gigs issued the live album ‘Platinum Tips + Ice Cream’ in 2017. They have signed a new deal with the Mississippi label Fat Possum who have also taken control of the bulk of their back catalogue for the US market. The first singles from the new album show that Neil and Jennifer haven’t fucked with the Royal Trux formula and who knows, maybe some long overdue recognition may emerge.