They're not a patch on their illustrious predecessors yet – hell, they're not a patch on Deap Vally – but debt is a funny thing in rock. Happily, their self-titled debut album sounds just like it should – a muscular expansion on the sound of their four preceding singles and EP. Despite those swinging weather vanes last winter, Royal Blood have surged forward as one of the year's genuine breakthrough acts, gigging like demons, accreting YouTube views and celebrity fans in Foals, Muse's Matt Bellamy and even Jimmy Page. Muse fans will find their antennae pinging here too there really are a number of parents on this young band's birth certificate. It actually sounds pretty great, not least because it's been a while since the Queens have made a record you could dance to.ĭespite the riffs, Royal Blood is no work of metal in its tautness and execution it has far more in common with groove-based successes such as the Black Keys than it does with heavy music. This album contains Royal Blood's most actionable nod to date in You Can Be So Cruel, which borrows both circular riff and succubus croon from Homme. Kerr openly talks of how Josh Homme's unshowy, non-metal singing influenced his own approach. On the rest, another recognisable source flashes red – Queens of the Stone Age. "I wish I cared less/ But I'm afraid I don't," declares Kerr on Careless, before his guitar-bass hybrid (buitar? gass?) spits out a blues lick which is answered by a rock riff. On a rough third of the songs, Kerr's vocal and snaking basslines pack what you could politely term a very familiar White dynamic. It's a Dogme-like approach, one inherited – like a fair few other touches here – from Jack White. Some money drops out of a pocket at the end of Loose Change, but that's literally just the sound of coins falling on to a hard surface. There is, Kerr avers, no overdubbing here, no studio trickery. Ten Tonne Skeleton features a five-note hook that sounds like precisely nothing that usually comes out of a bass guitar.
This sullen volley is made by a drumkit, a bass strung with guitar strings and a top-secret series of pedals and amps that can create surprisingly kaleidoscopic riffs. The opening bars of the album opener, their first single, Out of the Black, just drip with confidence. Direct and austere, there is little fat here.
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