Thursday, 11 September 2014

1. Royal Blood by Royal Blood (2014) - new albums/albums from 2014 review

List some of the hottest new bands of the past four years and you’ll find it hard to find an artist that has gained as much hype as Royal Blood have. The Brighton duo have quickly managed to gain a fierce reputation of being many things. Some are calling them future festival headliners and some are saying that they’re going to bring rock music back to the mainstream. Having shot straight to number one shortly after this debut album was released, you can see why many people are saying this kind of stuff.

In terms of sound, the band only consists of bass guitar, drums and vocals. If you imagined how this set up sounds then you’d think it was pretty light and soft right? Wrong! Royal Blood rock hard with what they have and no mercy is shown. Make no mistake, this is certainly music you can mosh to if you wish to do so.

What Royal Blood have managed to do on this album, is that they’ve managed to create a distinctively aggressive sound. Many of the songs on this record such as “Little Monster”, “Out of the Black” and “Ten Tonne Skeleton” are all quite violent lyrically. Plus, they’ve got the riffs to match these words perfectly. Front man Mike Kerr may only have a bass guitar, but by Jove he knows how to make it sound heavy.

There are honestly so many highlights on this album that you could spend hours with your friends talking about them. However, honorable mentions must go to the end part of “Figure It Out” when the song kicks into a fast frenzy and the high-pitched riffs of “Careless” too. If you can’t find a favorite bit that makes you go “wow this kicks ass” somewhere then you’re obviously not listening to Royal Blood.   

No rock duo has had as much impact on the charts since The White Stripes, and that was well over a decade ago. This band seriously deserves all the hype and recognition because it looks like they’re going to change mainstream music drastically. These past few years have seen many soppy Ed Sheeran types come and go and I think we can all agree that there needs to be a change. Hopefully people can welcome and warm up to this angry rock sound. They probably will because this album is surprisingly accessible despite its furious nature. All in all, if you want a perfect debut album then get this.

OVERALL RATING: 10/10


BEST SONGS: LITTLE MONSTER, COME ON OVER, TEN TONNE SKELETON

No comments:

Post a Comment