Single Review: Trudy and The Romance - The Last Rodeo/Angel

Over the past half-decade Trudy and The Romance have established themselves as a cult act with dedicated fanbase. Based out of Liverpool, they have a varied and eclectic mix of influences from the likes of Jonathan Richman, Brian Wilson and the scores of Henry Mancini and Disney. Critical acclaim has been wide ranging and their upbeat, exhilarating live shows have seen them go down a storm at SXSW, The Great Escape, Green Man and venues all over Europe.

 Recent Double-A sided single 'The Last Rodeo/Angel' were their first new material since 2019; a tender and brilliant double-whammy that felt like a necessary resurgence. We sent them over the pond to Ryan Doyle Elward and he became smitten enough to write these words. 

                  📷 Percy Walker-Smith

With their earlier release ‘Angel’ in April and ‘The Last Rodeo’ in late June, Trudy and The Romance put together a double A-side that is once again a bout of gorgeous, sparkling deliverables. They kept the quiver and vocal timbre of Bombay Bicycle Club that is characteristic of past material but balance the folky shyness by a kind of alternative country jounce combined with the gut and heft of rock riffs (most especially, the 80s' power ballad parts of ‘Angel’).

"It felt like it was time to smash through the glass, grab the jewels and run baby! Is it always gonna be one last rodeo? Do you keep running a thousand miles or stick around for a hustle you may never understand? Nobody can get along in this world alone - be a fool for somebody, face the sharks, and dance with the good guys, trust yourself, and live free. You can’t keep waiting for the next voyage to be over. You are captain of the ship and your days are already here." 

   Oliver Taylor, Trudy and the Romance

These are two rather grounded tracks comparatively, where left behind is some of the grandiose, jiving spectacular heard in ‘My Baby’s Gone Away’ from their 2021 album Sandman. Both recent singles are less raucous, a little pruned even, while still being punchy. And the country sound brings the setting closer to home, to a place we’ve all been. So the cabaret is traded in for a bar, a slower spot to sip a drink and stare off.

The invitation to this new venue isn’t that of ‘Junkyard Cat’ or ‘Sandman’ anymore, sacrificing a little sense of irrealis. Instead ‘The Last Rodeo’ and ‘Angel’ bid modestly, a desire to simply be fools in a fantasy. The line “I could never picture growing tired of life’s rodeos” counsels not to tire of and in fact embrace the menagerie of paths present in each day, in each rodeo.

Implicitly though, it means to say that risks must be taken to be anywhere at all. As ‘The Last Rodeo’ ends and ‘Angel’ begins, its intro rings out like a welcome to the sort of unknown which belongs only to the evening hours. The songs’ sentiments couple together to give a kind of graceful urging, prompting a leap of faith to fall into a dream that’s been forming all night but didn’t find any force in effect until the bar’s Last Call. And it’s all of us who don’t want the night to end.

                           r.d.e

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