After working as a guitarist for several other big-name groups, Rich Fownes is releasing his debut album, Success & Fulfillment, with Brighton band Not Richard & Her Majesty.
The album traces the collapse of multiple relationships and emotional states, alongside a steadily deteriorating relationship with the self, all wrapped in a camp, artificially confident sonic palette.
Within the first few seconds of the album’s opener, “My Twink Death,” Fownes fearlessly presents a new sound that is punk in every sense of the word: messy and almost overwhelming, with no regard for sonic or lyrical boundaries.
The twink death in question acts as the catalyst for the rest of the album, opening doors for endless self-doubt. “Stress is a Killer” shows off Fownes’ near mastery of camp lyricism with lines like “I like to make time for pure evil/ I clear my schedule if you don’t mean well,” to describe spreading yourself too thin and neglecting your own needs. In a twisted way, the track is an anthem for artists who give too much of themselves.
The album’s third track, “Not Nice,” is the first of its many showstoppers. Sonically big and lyrically some of Fownes’ best, taking on a cleaner sound to reprimand one’s own tendencies in love: “Since you’ve arrived I said I wouldn’t lie/ Baby that’s getting harder all the time/ Cos you remind me of what love feels like/ It’s not that nice.”
The album’s halfway point is “A Song About Being A Parasite.” The track uses the image of a parasite to express a feeling of being a burden on other people’s lives. Following “Bad at Summer,” a track that is eagerly self-depricating and mourns social summer experiences in favor of growing isolation, together the two songs create a lethal duo of self-destruction.
“It’s You, Soul Stew” creates its own distinct scene in the album. As its longest track, “Soul Stew” swells, building up resentments towards not saying “I love you in real life” or not fitting “into your paradigm.” The track is followed by “Beautiful,” one of the album’s messiest. “Beautiful” experiments with a surrealist approach to mental health struggles straight from a movie soundtrack.
The track sets itself apart as one of the undeniable high points of the album. Heavy and emotional, but relentlessly danceable, it’s the new Fownes’ sound through and through. In under three minutes, “Beautiful” creates its own world of smudged lipstick and tiring love.
“Incredible,” the album’s penultimate track, begins with a segment from Audrey Hepburn’s film Sabrina, telling her to “never resist an impulse, especially if it’s terrible.” The track then devolves into an extravagant castle of a presentable life crashing down with the lines “I live in hell/ I’m a living hell.” Fownes ends the album with “Contemptible.” Drunkenly upbeat, the track uses horns to theatrically laugh off the song’s evident sadness.
Fownes used this album to stretch every corner of his creative boundaries, and successfully created a whole new world of tongue-in-cheek self-deprecation that’s fun, lively, and relatable, while getting across all of its staggering emotions.
The full album, Success & Fulfillment, is out May 22, 2026. The band has been performing tracks from the project at various venues and festivals around Brighton.
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