It’s not every day that a band creates their own genre, especially with how over-saturated the music scene is these days (for better or worse), but Chicago natives Royale have succeeded in doing just that. Employees at the Chicago Music Exchange by day, by night the quartet performs music together, creating a style that they have dubbed as “sci-fi yacht metal,” or simply “yacht metal.” With a sound that blends the progressive, the spacey, and the heavy, the group’s full-length debut, As Long as the Money Lasted, which released on New Year’s Day, makes quite the statement.

The album opens with “Close to the Vest,” an eerie composition driven by haunting keys and a slick bass rhythm. The continual build throughout the song’s six-minute duration maintains the atmosphere from the beginning, before the music slowly fades out. Contrasting this right away is “Robots With Guns,” which powers through with a fast 6/8 time signature. That being said, the subtle guitar layers during the background of the chorus are what really push track number two over the top. “Inland Sea” follows with fairly hard-hitting instrumentation, but slows things down a bit and puts the listener on an island in terms of its sound.

This “island” vibe stays very much in the forefront on “Cosmonaut Romance,” and a sweeping bassline helps lay the musical foundation. The song picks up right near the end, when the guitars are front and center for a brief half-minute or so. What ensues is the aggressive “I’d Love to (But You Play Too Rough),” another up-tempo number showcasing singer Joel Bauman’s effortless crooning. The clattering snare pattern and slower pace in “Out of Season” complement guest vocals from cover design artist Nigel Evan Dennis quite well, the latter of which sound like the blasts of a trumpet at times.

“1981” keeps everything relatively “chill,” and picks up right where “Out of Season” left off. Five minutes in, the seemingly abrupt ending leads straight into “Robots II,” a song which sounds just like its title would suggest. This isn’t just any ordinary reprise though; the second part of “Robots” takes the riff from its predecessor and adds a few elements, including interesting new vocal effects. “Robots II” is the shortest song on the entire record, clocking in at right about three minutes, something that is rather average for many other bands around today. This makes quite the contrast to its successor, as the album closer is a whopping seven minutes, and not surprisingly, the longest on the record. “The November” is nothing short of epic, and features a simple but extremely catchy drum pattern. Guitar and bass take the backseat for much of this track, until the last minute and a half or so, when the atmospheric delay effects make an appearance and the guitars have a field day one last time.

With a powerful opening track, a closer that could not have possibly been any better, and every other song in between the two, progressive “yacht metallers” Royale have crafted one of the finest albums of the year. Everything about this record is massive, and there is absolutely nothing I could find that was wrong with it, even after listening to it several times all the way through. I realize that we’re only one month into 2015, but something tells me that As Long as the Money Lasted is going to find its way onto many year-end lists when that time does finally come. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though. After all, the new one has literally just begun.

Score: 5/5

Find Royale On Facebook | Purchase As Long as the Money Lasted on iTunes