Royal Blood lead us back to riff-soaked garage rock to their hardest-hitting material they could compile. You can smell some recycling, but this album is made for losing it,
Book Royal Blood for bullying because they just got meaner. The duo from Brighton seem to have shifted from their buzzy noise rock album and sound in 2023 to getting that garage band gear back in place. They’ve got a legion of fans who’ve been wanting to hear them go back to “the good old days” of Royal Blood and I think they’ve got it. The downside: don’t complain if the riffs sound like the early days of the band. They are not here to sit and innovate. They’re here to become your favourite aggressive rock album to pair with gaming. 12 days for GTA to come, and you better have this on your playlist. This is their latest album, Dead Company.
Tuning back to hard garage rock
Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher have that schoolyard chemistry that goes beyond their sound. It’s like an aggressive British version of The Black Keys, but rather than going the bluesy route, the duo turn the distortion and tempo up. They have a loyal legion of fans now that know you’re going to get your heavy dose of riff-based rock, and I’m very glad that they chose to go all in on a stage feel. That means every single song has been thought of in a way that has various entry points and jam sessions when it’s being performed live. So what are its contents, you ask?
Feel the power in your house fluctuate when you listen to the opening song, Dead Company. You can almost hear the stadium come together and clap to the opening riff, which is why Thatcher chooses to start things off on the bass drum. I found this: having DNA that salutes the likes of Wolfmother, with Kerr going apeshit on the bass. We are hearing nods to the early tones of Royal Blood, and he’s been generous in the low and mid ranges to make sure the sound is meatier. Kudos to an incredibly powerful, energetic, and upbeat opening track because if the world is looking for attention-grabbing hooks now (due to their intelligible lack of curiosity), this one does the trick.
Royal Blood keeps the tempo up
If you thought this lacked tempo in the opening, don’t worry. You’re given the aggressively titled Swallow the Bomb as the second track. You can almost smell the gunpowder and tar on this explosive number. This reminds me of playing Tony Hawk, Need for Speed, and Road Rash on my computers with shitty speakers that couldn’t handle the frequency. These are hooky riffs that know how to pull you in and make you sing it at the top of your voice. Feel like you can hear a little bit of the Typhoons era of Royal Blood? That’s because it’s a reference point the duo have taken for keeping the energy up-tempo throughout the album.
The outstanding single Ten Over Ten comes in next. This had been released more than three months ago to fans starving for more Royal Blood tracks. As the duo joked on their YouTube, they were overshadowed by the famous eclipse, but I think this song does great justice to what they want to experiment on and push past. There’s a moment where Ben Thatcher even goes for a moment of blast beats on the drums, and if you are not expecting that, it’s going to get an expletive out of you.
Don’t overthink it
Though you might have heard a thousand songs with the riff combination of Mother Never Told You, I think it’s the duo’s approach and the flow in which you’re listening to it on the album that makes you not compare. Royal Blood have made sure that there is no notch dipping the energy of the entire album, nor is there a moment where they go for a chant- or chorus-heavy track. You get to live high voltage even during the verse sections, and that’s some Jack White-styled old-school rock for you. Call Muse because they’re channelling that entire aura with Nowhere All Along .
I’ll always remain surprised as to how Mike Kerr is able to make the bass sound like a guitar, even more and more, in certain songs. This is especially true in Ride, which comes in the middle of the album and would have several layers of higher or scale notes if it was a traditional three- or four-piece band going about it. It’s that game he plays around with pull-off notes and keeps the arpeggiated structure as the spine of the song as he sings over it. Mike’s voice really does numbers for the album; he’s powered with rage and a certain energy that is newfound, yet reminiscent of the gasoline-powered debut years.
Switching gears, shotgunning beers
It’s the grooves they play around with. When we come closer to the end of the album, Rare View Mirror and the consequent track Take Em All have very different approaches in the groove. They chop it into really heavy chunks where Thatcher can work his magic in the percussion department and Mike can sing with that royal blood. If you don’t overthink it, you know that you’re getting an awesome set of riffs and grooves that you have missed for a really long time. That’s what this entire album is about: not overthinking it and not philosophising too much about the themes.
If you haven’t looked around, the world seems to be crawling to shit, and music is an awesome way of having escapism that is still romanticised and considered passionate when done right. Royal Blood reflects all that anger, irritation, rage, and frustration several generations now feel. If this isn’t informal therapy that we can all afford (for now), then what is?:
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Self professed metalhead, moderately well read. If the music has soul, it's whole to me. The fact that my bio could have ended on a rhyme and doesn't should tell you a lot about my personality.
