Sometimes the world is a hard place to be in. Sometimes we try to fool ourselves by slathering it in sugar – an easy path to oblivion with a shallow saccharine sheen. But often what we really crave is a break, a difference – something to cut through everything and make you feel. The Mt. Royal EP is something of a splash in that direction. A smidgen of what they might yet be capable of, it slices through the sugared haze with a sharpness – the calm but intense fervour sustained throughout thunders, rolls and roars quietly towards tiny explosions.

This is a band formed of an evolution. The post-punk ambience of Lake Trout begat the all-instrument side project Big In Japan who, after a time backing up U.N.K.L.E, joined forces with Celebration’s Katrina Ford and here we have Mt. Royal. The strength of the canvas over which Ford washes great, deep colours is testament to the instrumental essence of this project from project.

Their roots are in Baltimore, a place that has rumbled with the friction of a thousand musicians casting a line into the world for years. The galloping expanse of genres includes everything from opera to doo-wop to blues and jazz, to the more recent hard edge, soft finish of dream-pop and low-fi
Opening track and first single “Missing Reward” is slick with full-hearted waves. They splay aside and let Fords’ vocals bubble like the foam of a wild sea sweeping across a jagged coast: guts spilled. The background seeps through, nothing inseparable and each part shines, lifting up the other.

At the mid-way point More races in, rising slowly from the rolling sea, the vocals the lynchpin this time, considered, as the backdrop rushes under. It ripples with ferocity in parts, always plump. As it finally drops down, Ford wails: “Follow. I’ll follow….your heart. Don’t stop” and it spills over with a desperation reserved only for love, a visceral cry of agony in the pleasure and the pain of it.

“Yes Your Majesty” floats above synthetic organ reminiscent of Bella Union label mates, bristling with determination, while “Mockingbird” is bookended with a balm for a mind well worn with thoughts but a centre that dips into a furious fight back.

This is a soundtrack of a heart on a sleeve and there’s urgency daubed in thick layers of dark, crumbling colour. Each track is balanced carefully between the torture of simply being alive and a decided hopefulness that all together feels like the slightest taste of a banquet still to come.