Music Concerts

The rise of the next Phoenix

• by Melissa Bobbitt
• Aug 13, 2012

Modern-day attention spans don't have the patience to wait four years for a once-hot band to release a followup album to their breakthrough. Case in point: Phoenix. These indie-dance upstarts from France conquered the world in 2008 with their inescapable Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Terrestrial radio murdered the singles, front man Thomas Mars knocked up Francis Ford Coppola's daughter and now new material from the six-piece is stuck in archaic Republican Calendar limbo.

You snooze, you lose, Mars and mates. For an emerging group from Sweden is about to rise from your ashes.

The Royal Concept are carrying the torch where Phoenix left off. Awash in chiming, four-on-the-floor guitars and manned by the scuzzy/sexy David Larson, these lads are poised to make waves on American shores.

These riotous fellas - whose drummer moonlights in Robyn's backing group - boast catchy tunes that are more than boy-meets-girl (one of them is a fun little commentary on stripper-stalks-boy. I'm sure many of you out there can relate...). Californians can get the jump on "knowing them when" by catching them in concert August 19th at the Troubadour and August 20th at the Constellation Room. Their debut self-titled EP (on Universal Republic) is for your listening pleasure below.