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Chatte Royal — Mick Torres Plays Too F***ing Loud
(Kapitän Platte Kutter 070, 2024, CD / LP)

by Jon Davis, Published 2026-01-20

Mick Torres Plays Too F***ing Loud Cover art

Chatte Royal’s oddly-titled debut full-length says hello with a short track called “Bonjour,” which starts with a brief introduction on nylon-string guitar then jumps into an energetic rock song that sounds like it wants to be an anthem — but then it’s over before even a minute and a half. Next up, “Victoria Wong, Pt. 2” is a great slab of instrumental rock in what you might call a post-rock mode. It’s full of really tricky, precise rhythms, and if it weren’t in 4/4 you’d probably call it math-rock as well. I don’t know if they’re referring to Victoria Wong the Classical violinist or Victoria Wong the Classical pianist or some other Victoria Wong, but it’s an excellent tribute to whoever. (Part 1 is on the EP September, which came out in 2020.) Mick Torres Plays Too F***ing Loud is short on credits, so all I know about the personnel is that it’s a four-piece group and the guitarist is Diego di Vito. This is apparently his main band, but he’s also lately appeared in We Stood Like Kings, which makes sense, as the two bands’ styles are quite compatible. There’s also no explanation of the reference to Mick Torres. Every one of the eight tracks on the album is a winner, with my personal favorite being “Zio Nervoso,” which is an intense blast of precise playing. “Sushi” gives it a run for the money, however, with some of the most mathy arrangements, maybe something like Covet in a particularly feisty mood. Unlike many instrumental bands, Chatte Royal doesn’t indulge in long tracks that build slowly. They’re more likely to slap you in the face with full force within the first few seconds of a track, then use brief interludes of calm to punctuate sections. The track called “Interlude” is an exception, being a slow fade in of indistinct sounds, almost like the isolated reverb track from one of the other pieces, but it’s less than two minutes long. One thing I really enjoy about these tracks is the way they write songs in 4/4 that sound like they’re in odd meters. This is a really fun album that should appeal to fans of both post-rock and math-rock. And di Vito is an excellent guitarist.

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases

Related artist(s): Chatte Royal

More info
http://kapitaenplatte.bandcamp.com/album/mick-torres-plays-too-f-ing-loud

 

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