[music] Regal Standard

Singing love songs with a voice very reminiscent of Robin Zander, the sound of this band falls largely in between the likes of Cheap Trick and the Beatles. Some might argue that those two bands actually travelled a lot of common ground, and those people will likely love Regal Standard. Former Extra Very guitarist Larry Schroeder, the leader and main songwriter for this quintet, injects the music with some tricky chords and angular vocal melodies, and the resultant depth belies its almost-sugary pop veneer. In today's parlance, that puts the sound somewhere on the Midwestern jangly pop side of emo, as there's more heft than the former and less crunch than the latter style typically exhibit, and holds up better over repeated listenings than either.