Ryan Schafer, the band’s singer and central songwriter, is the one who left his country’s borders. Here at City Slang we believe that he actually wanted to record a dance album, but his upbringing got in the way. After all, the average adolescent American emerging from America’s Bible Belt doesn’t spend his teenage years socialising amidst French filter house beats and instead grows up with Classic Rock radio: Led Zep. Styx, Foreigner, Rush, Boston, Kansas and the like. But if you check out ‘Brother’, the opening track on Side B of this LP, you’ll know we’ve got a dance hit on our hands, ’cos ROYAL BANGS have gone ahead and made that dance record all the same.

Joining Schafer are Chris Rusk, lunatic drummer, one of the best we’ve ever seen, and Sam Stratton, guitarist extraordinaire: he comes off ultracool while he fires off an arsenal of licks that would make the likes of Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine envious. His just as amazing guitar-duelling partner on the other side of the stage is Brandon Biondo and behind them it's Henry Gibson on bass, who gives it the all-important foundation. Together they create, what their US label describes as “a laser-fuelled, turbo-pop destroyer of bad stuff; a musical group sent down from burger heaven”. If that doesn’t make sense, nor will the fact that ROYAL BANGS were first picked up by the Black Keys’ Patrick Carney, who signed them to his Audio Eagle label for the US after stumbling upon them on MySpace. But if you’ve got your head round that then we’ll let Audio Eagle finish their pitch: “they sound awesome, like a wall of beats from a computer blasting duelling guitar wizards into hot dog hell, and sheets of red-hot synth slam dunk singing together as a dangerous old/new pop octopus.” We’d claim that description as our own if it wasn’t already all over the internet.

The band themselves describe their music simply as “wizard fresh”. Their goal, they explain, is “to expose our souls to the many disillusioned people of the world, to let them know we understand their pain and to give them something to relate to." They also add that, “we want to save just enough souls to be able to buy an Escalade with a Jacuzzi in it." We don’t yet know whether they want to park it in Knoxville.

Whether they make it out of Knoxville depends of course upon their passports, but WE BREED CHAMPIONS is going to help the cause. ‘Handcuff Killa’ betrays their dance music desires with its electronic intro but soon kicks into a Television style jam, ‘New Scissors’ scuffs up like a pair of Broken Social Scene sneakers, ‘Japanese Cars’ strips off the overalls and reveals the grime beneath though its reprise, ‘Hyundai from Korea’, offers a redesign with extra features. ‘Russian Goodbye’ and ‘Brother’, meanwhile, confirm the record’s claim to be the most diverse and joyful garage rock debut of the year. ROYAL BANGS, however, are still pissed that it’s not a dance record and are about to start work on their second. We anticipate minimal techno, though perhaps you’ll talk them out of it. In the meantime, enjoy these two sides of vinyl and look forward to seeing the band over here latest in May. By then album No.2 will be in the can and the band will be on another trip altogether. But hey! We guarantee that they’ll continue to amaze you. They breed champions, you know…!