Unless you’ve been living under a soundproofed rock for the past year or so, you’ll have been hard pushed to avoid the bluesy, riff-riddled rock of Brighton duo Royal Blood. Debut track ‘Out Of The Black’ was a Radio 1 staple from the get-go and follow-up single ‘Little Monster’ – an album highlight – was everywhere over the summer. With good reason too – both songs are swaggering, monolithic bastards.
The steady trickle of tracks from vocalist/bassist Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher – seemingly putting songs online the minute they were finished mastering them – proves here to be something of a double-edged sword. While it’s built anticipation for this, their first full album, its relatively short length means that we’ve already heard 40% of it before its release.
This has proven a savvy marketing strategy at a time when record labels are struggling to rebuild their business model around the fact that the majority of their target demographic now see music as a service rather than a product – at the time of writing, the album looks to be heading straight for the number one spot – but consequently there’s a slight sense of anticlimax upon hearing ‘Royal Blood’ in its entirety.
That sense of déja entendu aside, this is a blistering beast of a record. Opener ‘Out of the Black’ still sounds as vital as it did when we first heard it at the tail end of last year and its stop-start assault is followed, brilliantly, by the 70s-flecked groove-rock of ‘Come on Over’. From that point on the album doesn’t let up – it’s track after track of head-noddingly heavy, soulful tunes. At just ten tracks there’s little flab here; in fact we’d go so far as to say there’s not a single duff song in sight. As well as the aforementioned singles, ‘Loose Change’ and ‘Ten Tonne Skeleton’,with its Muse-esque lead riff, are particular highlights.
Speaking of Muse, Kerr’s vocals seem to owe a debt to Matt Bellamy which, combined with the Queens of the Stone Age-esque ‘guitar’ tones that pepper the album (Kerr famously plays everything on a 4-string bass routed through several pitch-shifters and both guitar and bass amplifiers), means the band’s influences are clear. That Kerr and Thatcher are able to evoke such well-established heavy-hitters on their debut, though, speaks volumes of their songwriting ability.
Putting aside the unusual way in which the band’s sound is achieved, ‘Royal Blood’ is far from the most original release you’ll hear all year but it’s certainly one of the best. That a straight-up hard rock band has knocked yet another generic Simon Cowell boyband from the number one spot is simply a bonus. Royal Blood are less than two years old, so what we’re hearing here is essentially the initial result of their decision to start playing together – we can’t wait to hear what comes next.
ROB BARBOUR