Born in Georgia, now based in Los Angeles. Singer-songwriter August Royals has been catching listeners’ attention throughout the past year thanks to his passionate and entertaining, story-driven pop bangers. In 2019 he posted a clip of his song ‘Restless’ on Instagram, which ended up going viral and put his name on the map. Since then, he has been working on an EP and visual music project called ‘Inhaler’ with him already releasing various singles from the upcoming project.
August has now revealed the third track from ‘Inhaler’ entitled ‘‘All I Need’, an emotive, passionate pop banger. The track is driven by a deep pop bassline which combined with the drums and guitars form an instrumental full of emotional depth. With electronic sounds laced throughout filling out the track giving it multiple sonic layers.
Vocally, August’s performance accentuates the darker sound of ‘All I Need’. The song begins with a muffled voice over which sounds distorted and dark, stating “I’ve tried to empty my thoughts. Cold sweats, blue lips. Staring up at the cross, I wear one on the back of my neck, but my demons climb my shoulders just to make sure I stay weighed down.” Which creates a dark and haunting vibe, with August providing auto-tune laced, emotive vocals throughout.
The accompanying video for the track is equally strong, the third released as part of his ‘Inhaler’ visual project, each video in the ‘Inhaler’ series has been formulated as a TV show with each video also being an ‘episode’, with each having a cohesive story.
‘All I Need’ brilliantly represents the darkness that is enveloping August as he struggles to hold onto life after being hit by a car in the previous ‘episode’ of ‘inhaler’. The video is full of imagery associated with death and religion. It uses these wonderfully to help bring home the themes and story of this track and video.
August has quickly become one to watch in just a few short months. After a chance meeting with Brockhampton’s Kevin Abstract at a show in Los Angeles, the two became fast friends and collaborators. This friendship with Kevin ended up with August being recently signed to RCA records, making it clear there is much more to come from August in the coming years.
Passionate, story-driven and endlessly entertaining, ‘All I Need’ is another high-quality addition to August Royals ‘Inhaler’ visual music project and his discography.
Words: David Pratt
