{"id":98902,"date":"2026-01-28T15:18:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T15:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/98902\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T15:18:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T15:18:27","slug":"local-album-review-royek-oranges-in-alaska","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/98902\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Album Review \/\/ Royek \/\/ Oranges in Alaska"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                    \t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eriereader.com\/image\/scale\/auto\/auto\/articles\/008166_album-royek.jpg\" class=\"lightbox_img\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/008166_album-royek.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Self-released<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">4.25\/5 stars<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Beautifully filled with infectious energy and introspection, the debut full-length from Royek is an album worth repeating. The local indie-rock quintet has been active for a few years now, having released a three-song demo in the summer of 2024. This record clocks in at 29 minutes over seven tracks, a quick listen with a King of the Hill reference to boot. The band&#8217;s namesake, bassist and vocalist Matt Royek, is joined by guitarists Kevin Coatoam and Eric Larson, keyboardist Jessica Larson, and drummer Jon Teater. The opening track &#8220;Mind\/Body\/Soul&#8221; starts things off lightly, and continually ramps up until the passionate chorus of &#8220;In Your Back Pocket.&#8221; The picked bass intro of &#8220;Home Movies We&#8217;ll Never Make&#8221; is gorgeous, underscoring more uptempo complaint rock you can dance to. Things shift gears with Coatoam&#8217;s &#8220;Into the Storm,&#8221; a bluesy 6\/8 scorcher. &#8220;32nd Annual Apology Tour&#8221; is probably my personal favorite, embodying the lyrical alt-rock central to the band, and containing maybe the greatest local guitar solo I&#8217;ve heard recorded. Larson and Coatoam&#8217;s guitar work over the record serves as an overall highlight, with some real moments of vocal brilliance from Royek (fervently shown on tracks like &#8220;Moon&#8221;) abounding. The closer &#8220;All In&#8221; plays like a Ted Leo banger, with some smoking guitar solo tradeoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Self-released 4.25\/5 stars Beautifully filled with infectious energy and introspection, the debut full-length from Royek is an album&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,20289,48332,48331],"class_list":["post-98902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-local-album-review","tag-oranges-in-alaska","tag-royek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}