In 2024, Royel Otis—the Australian pop duo of Royel Maddell and Otis Pavlovic—went viral twice, first thanks to a cover of Sophie Ellis-Bexter’s “Murder On the Dancefloor” and again, months later, with the Cranberries’ “Linger.” As contrasting as those two songs are, they each fit into the band’s oft-adventurous repertoire of sound. What I mean is: Royel Otis has range, delivered in self-aware peaks and pitfalls. And, after spending most of the 2020s releasing countless singles and EPs, including the great Sofa Kings, they released the ambitious, zig-zagging Pratts & Pain in 2024 and began looking towards stardom, hopping on a never-ending run of tour dates and making their presence felt on the festival circuit. But Maddell and Pavlovic’s productivity hasn’t waned. Their second full-length, hickey, arrives on the heels of summer, some 18 months or so after its predecessor. And the songs—wistful moods, bitter ends, seasonal desire—suggest that Royel Otis are more than just a lucky cover band.
The tones set by each song on hickey are well-balanced, both in their lyrics and their sound, which is no simple feat, considering even the higher-energy tracks are about loss and longing. But that’s the kind of distinction that makes Royel Otis such an exciting new act, that their efforts on their sophomore album are proof of a relatively young band finding its footing without trying to fit into just any one box. “I Hate This Tune,” an upbeat introduction to the recurring theme of unresolved feelings and heartbreak, delivers a pleading chorus (“So please, please / You’re tearing this apart / No need to stand so far / Away, away, away”) punctuated by melodic whistling, which becomes a staple sound on the record that emphasizes Pavlovic’s ability to use his own voice as an instrument. It’s a talent that, both with and without sound engineering maneuvers, adds depth to the sparser tracks on the record. The song’s encouragement to keep your spirits high during tough times is reignited on “Dancing With Myself,” where Pavlovic plays around with his pitch to add to the track’s breezy melody, providing the album with a tune akin to Royel Otis’ poppier hits, like “Oysters In My Pocket” and “I Wanna Dance With You.”
While previous emotional releases from Royel Otis have been more stripped down, like 2021’s “Days in the Dark” or the more recent “Til the Morning,” the collection of vulnerable ballads on hickey are especially lush, partly on behalf of some of the band’s collaborators, like Joshua Lloyd Watson and Lydia Kitto of the London-based nu-disco group Jungle. The soulful influence of Lloyd’s production is prevalent on “Good Times,” which bounces between distant and gloomy vocals, filling empty spaces with energetic keys and playful echo effects. Those touches are just as notable on “She’s Got a Gun,” where the sound expands by the second with the additions of stacked instrumentals and ringing vocal repetition. hickey is at its best during collaborative tracks like those, but even on the moments without any outside input, Royel Otis show a concentrated effort to create a more expansive backdrop. “Shut Up,” a guitar song that finds Pavlovic asking his lover both to shut up and to not go away in the same breath, falls a bit flat in the vocal delivery, but it compensates for the misstep with a delicate balance of strings and synth.
On moments like “Torn Jeans,” efforts to liven up a slow ballad by way of unexpected tonal shifts and breathy ad-libs don’t land as neatly, but the harmonizing by Pavlovic on the chorus is a nice touch. Similarly, “More to Lose” is a challenging listen, as the drums and vocals feel like they’re deliberately a half-step apart from each other. But given the song’s lyrical context of feeling half a world apart from a lover, it’s fair to assume the lack of balance is a creative choice.
That kind of creative choice is also prevalent on “Moody,” which was criticized for what some deemed to be misogynistic lyrics. It’s ironically one of the album’s least moody songs, taking a departure from the duo’s typical New Wave influence and instead borrowing from modern rap, especially in the lyrical delivery, which makes the repeated line of “My girl’s a bitch when she’s moody” seem less out of place. And, while there are plenty of new sounds introduced on hickey, there are familiar ones, too—like the ‘80s-inspired, love-triangle-describing “Who’s Your Boyfriend,” which makes good use of sweeping, cinematic synths, or the gated snare drums taking center stage on “Say Something.”
The album’s closer, “Jazz Burger,” is a haunting ballad that calls back to the earworms of “I Hate This Tune,” proving that an equilibrium can be found between the high-energy tracks and the mellower ones, especially with the addition of consistent throughlines like Pavlovic’s whistling and Maddell’s punchy guitar phrases. The cheeky lyrical nod to it being the final track (“Maybe it’s time that I leave / Maybe it’s time to fade out”), paired with the nonsensical title and language (“I’m mash in your gravy and peas”) are clever and simple, which is what made the duo’s music endearing to begin with. Maybe it’s the boyish charm of their nature, or maybe it’s just the excitement of unpredictability, but the sonic ping-ponging on hickey only makes Royel Otis’ incongruent sound more appealing. It’s familiar enough to hook you in, but just offbeat enough to feel fresh and compelling.
