Hi, everyone. Yathony Yatano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Royel Otis album, hickey.

Royel Otis is an Australian indie-pop duo made up of members Royel Maddell as well as Otis Pavlovic. They are returning very quickly after a pretty explosive 2024, which not only saw the release of their debut album, but also a lot of viral attention off of, I guess, some pretty well-received covers: one of the legendary Cranberries track, "Linger", as well as a version of "Murder on the Dance Floor" that made it to number one on the US alternative radio chart. They're now also on Capitol Records, so they're seeing a lot more industry support over here in the US. One would think with the band getting so much attention and this being their sophomore LP, they would really want to build upon what they did on their first album and also show what makes them special as a duo outside of their cover versions. I have been seeing some genuine and organic excitement for this record. Plus, I mean, it's also cool to see a band legitimately bringing an indie pop sound to the forefront in a way.

But when I dug into this album, let me say I was actually deeply shocked at just how vapid, substance-less, toothless, soulless it all is. Every single track on this 13-song album. Like, it actually hurts. It actually is painful to listen to this record knowing full well the lineage of indie pop and alternative artists that its very bland and uninspired sounds unabashedly rip off and just see Royel Otis not only get away with it, but just make no effort whatsoever — zero effort — to alter it, take artistic liberties, get creative, just do something.

I'm sorry, if you've heard The Cure, Beach Fossils, Dominic Fike, Foster the People, Toro y Moi, and Tame Impala, you've literally heard everything this album has to offer. You have heard the totality of this record and then some, because all Royel Otis actually do is steal ideas, and sounds, and vocal inflections from all of those artists and takes away — just rips out anything that made their music actually compelling — and just brings it down, reduces it down to the most skeletal, basic, wallpaper, background vibe music playlist elements. Because nearly every track on this album has a super dry, thin, punchy drum; a twangy, hollowed out, reverb-soaked guitar.

It feels like I am experiencing a PSYOP meant to exist as a net to catch potential indie kids, and listeners, and fans from getting into any of those artists because they'll hear this and think, "You know what? This is just enough." The efforts sometimes to rip these artists off are so blatant, my jaw is open. On the track from this thing that sounds so much like Foster the People, "she's got a gun", the duo couldn't even refrain from making a song that is obviously inspired by "Pumped Up Kicks" and references a gun in the lyrics.

I'm sorry for not talking about the music itself more, but believe me when I say there's little to nothing to talk about. Every single guitar lick, every single vocal line is a nothing burger on this thing. The more I listened to it, the more it just felt like that was the point: to basically find a way to give the audience a signal of subversion — or, I don't know, "alternative," whatever the hell that means in 2025 — but doing it without actually doing anything subversive, or left-field, or challenging artistically, or even evoking any emotion.

It's downright disheartening because I feel like this is exactly what you would get thrown in front of your face if you prompted an AI to generate a new indie pop song based on a list of these artists. Throw in The Drums and Car Seat Headrest for good measure. So yeah, of course AI is catching up to us in some ways right now because this is the sub-standard level of creativity that some musicians and some fans (apparently millions of them!) are willing to tolerate without question.

In some respects, it's a cool and it's a great thing that the internet has allowed the underground to be able to have a mainstream moment if certain artists or albums that are left-of-center happen to manage a song or a viral moment that captures the hearts and minds of people who don't necessarily seek out music that is weird or obscure in any way. It's definitely broken down barriers that have been in place for decades at this point, which didn't really need to be there.

However, I don't think that should come at the expense of the soul of underground music itself as we sit back and watch it get watered down to basically nothing and then see it get sold back to us from a platform that allows it to drown out the efforts and visibility of anybody writing music in this lane that's actually worth a damn.

So yeah, again: boring, soulless, gross. Why does it exist? This is just white noise. If we're going to rise to this level of popularity and put out a record, can we at least put some heart into the vocals? Think of a guitar line that might require a few more minutes of thought to conceive? Or actually communicate something of value, confront the audience with something, or provide an experience that goes beyond just chill vibes? Yeah, I'm feeling like a strong 1 to a light 2 on this record.

Anthony Fantano, Royel Otis, forever.