"You wouldn't have bet on a two-man drums and bass outfit to be a goer, when the UK music industry was gearing up to sell one blue-eyed soul singer (Sam Smith) to the Americans while waiting for an album from another (Adele). A lower-than-low end distillation of Queens of the Stone Age and the White Stripes, Royal Blood's sulky boogie is made by piston-like drummer Ben Thatcher and singing bassist Mike Kerr according to spartan values.
Direct and austere, there is little fat here. The opening bars of the album opener, their first single, 'Out of the Black', just drip with confidence. 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. 'Ten Tonne Skeleton' features a five-note hook that sounds like precisely nothing that usually comes out of a bass guitar. There is, Kerr avers, no overdubbing here, no studio trickery. 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.
It's a Dogme-like approach, one inherited – like a fair few other touches here – from Jack White. On a rough third of the songs, Kerr's vocal and snaking basslines pack what you could politely term a very familiar White dynamic. "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 the rest, another recognisable source flashes red – Queens of the Stone Age. Kerr openly talks of how Josh Homme's unshowy, non-metal singing influenced his own approach. 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. It actually sounds pretty great, not least because it's been a while since the Queens have made a record you could dance to.
Despite 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. Muse fans will find their antennae pinging here too; there really are a number of parents on this young band's birth certificate." - The Guardian
Compact Disc Pressing
Tracklisting:
1. Out Of The Black
2. Come On Over
3. Figure It Out
4. You Can Be So Cruel
5. Blood Hands
6. Little Monster
7. Loose Change
8. Careless
9. Ten Tonne Skeleton
10. Better Strangers
