His Lordship – His Lordship

Guitarist James Walbourne and drummer Kris Sonne form the gritty rock ’n’ roll two-piece that is His Lordship. The band was born around 2015, producing loud and rapid guitar music with plenty of energy, and this debut self-titled album should intrigue those with a penchant for intensity.

Opener All Cranked Up is a strong start, and rings bells with early White Stripes albums. The sense of urgency and restlessness in the lyrics “I’m much too young but far too old to be all cranked up with nowhere to go” are synonymous with the frantic energy of Walbourne’s guitar. Buzzkill is more avante-garde, flitting wildly between pitches and tempo and making it a difficult listen for anyone expecting a tune as straightforward as the previous track, and the recently released single Joyboy is an enjoyable but short rollercoaster with a satisfying guitar solo.

Much of the album is reminiscent of the garage rock/post-punk revival that came out of the early to mid-noughties, as mentioned previously with The White Stripes. Walbourne is a fantastic guitarist, and he’s proven that with much of his work in The Pretenders, which he’s been a part of since 2008 – but many of His Lordship’s songs feel like more of a fun experiment than anything else.

When speaking about the work that went into the album, Walbourne explains, “We spent a lot of time thinking about what rock ’n’ roll really is, and it’s the weird parts of those old records: if you listen to Another Saturday Night by Don French, it’s all over the shop and weird but perfect. And what makes it perfect is that it’s so fucked up.” It’s not hard to hear the weirdness that His Lordship has tried to discover and convey in this record.

Rock Fall Echo Dust is a pure and simple blues number, while Cat Call is a noisy instrumental building into a charging crescendo before the odd but fun of Jackie Works for the NHS begins. Pixellated Polly is an art-punk success, with echoes of 00s indie rockers Young Knives, and My Brother is an Only Child is a huge dollop of strangeness, which becomes more enjoyable the more you listen to it. The album ends on the fun and frivolous I Live in the City.

This debut makes a lot of noise and is not altogether serious, but that’s how many of us like our music.

Hannah Broughton
Image: Woody Rankin

His Lordship is released on 26^th January 2024. For further information or to order the album visit His Lordship’s website here.

Watch the video for the single Joyboy here: