Approaching something with a mind-set can be both good and bad. Especially when you have had a good part of the experience in advance (In this case, four of the ten songs). 'Royal Blood', a heavy rock duo from West Sussex manage to stand aside from other 2-piece bands that can fall into their ball-park. The main difference here is that front-man Mike Kerr swaps a guitar for a two-way octave fuzzed up Bass Guitar two accompany band-mate Ben Thatchers hard-hitting drums. As well as that, most other rock duo's tend to side with Blues or Indie like The White Stripes, The Black Keys and Blood Red Shoes, but Royal Blood are without doubt, straight up heavy rock.
“Melt my face off!”
That was my mind-set when delving into Royal Bloods
self-titled, number one debut album. A band that pride themselves on gnarly
riffs and heavy drums, should, over the 32 or so minutes in which they have my
attention, do this very thing.
So have they succeeded in doing so?
Well…
The opening track ‘Out of the Black’ starts the album off in
this way. Singer/Bass guitarist Mike Kerr’s opening, muted riff,
coinciding with drummer Ben Thatcher’s parallel striking, before exploding the
track into life, sets the president for the albums ingredients. Unfortunately
though, the album reaches its lyrical peak here with the menacingly
confrontational lines, “Don’t breathe when I talk, ‘cause you haven’t been
spoken too.” Followed by, “I've got a gun for a mouth and a bullet with your
name on it”. What’s more, the breakdown at the end of the track is equally as
confrontational, only this time, musically. The bass solo, built up by the drums,
exploding the song back into life again, displays the clear instrumental talent
from this heavy rock duo.
This track truly did melt my face off!
However this is as exciting as it gets until the halfway
point.
The following track “Come on Over” isn’t just lyrically
vague. A story about god interfering in a relationship “There’s no God and I
don’t really care.” Combined with Kerr suggesting, “Let’s run away, get out of
here.” In the same narrative seems as if he is just throwing out random
scenarios. This under-pinned by how much the track seems to be a diluted
version of the previous track, doesn’t move this journey forward.
This did not melt my face off.
Furthermore, the next three tracks fall under my, “meh.” category.
This stems mainly from the focus on riffs turning the progression of the song-writing
into a secondary process with Royal Blood starting the songs with a riff,
moseying along a bland melody, and then hastily getting back to the initial
riff. This is evident with ‘You can be so Cruel’ and ‘Figure it Out’. Both
tracks only seem to go anywhere interesting towards the end when Kerr decides
to break into a jam session-like solo and try and melt my face off.
Only momentarily do two of these three tracks bring a mild
sweat to my forehead.
Furthermore, none of these tracks go anywhere lyrically. For
a band that sight ‘Jeff Buckley’ as an influence you would think, narrative
would play a major part in their make-up. Not that you would expect a singer to
deliver as spine-tingling a range of vocals to the table. However, the way in
which Buckley, like his father Tim would build a story and take the listener on
a journey seems to have been lost on Royal Blood. Vague lyrics such as “All the
glitters is gold” (stolen from ‘Led Zeppelins’ 'Stairway to Heaven) off of track 7 ‘Loose Change’ and “Cut loose like an
animal fired out like a cannonball” in ‘Ten Tonne Skeleton’ make the group seem
far too much like a cliché. Lines like these in my opinion don’t possess the
power of a lyric such as, “That dark angel he is shuffling in, watching over
them with his black, leather wings unfurled”. (Jeff Buckley – “Dream Brother”). Descriptions that try and amount to this
fall short of the mark, and are a dime a dozen as well.
The second
side of the album starts much like the first. ‘Little Monster’ offers up a
blood curdling amount of distortion and heaviness from the very first slide
down Kerr’s two-way octave driven bass. The riff conjures up a platform for the
rhythm of Ben Thatcher’s heavy-hitting drums to move the song along, before
exploding into a rip-roaring chorus which swirls around your head as drum fills
and riffs match together perfectly before repeating the cycle. Much like ‘Out
of the Black’, the song breaks down into a bass guitar solo which is then built
up via a drum solo before ripping back into a chorus followed by a part drum
fill, part solo. Melodically, this is how Royal Blood best build a song around
a riff.
This song
took me on a journey.
This song succeeded
in melting my face off!
Aforementioned
lyrical cliché’s ‘Loose Change’ and ‘Ten Tonne Skeleton’ carry on the trend of
an idea getting in the way of song progressing. Both songs again, displaying
solid riff work, ‘Loose Change’ being the most low-fi on the album and ‘TTS’
providing a different change in guitar tone, but amounting to no more than two
more album fillers.
Either side
of these tracks however, showcases where Royal Blood impress. ‘Careless’ has
Mike spitting venom at the subject who he can’t stop thinking about yet they
“couldn’t care less”. The wailing guitar sounds spin round and take off twice
before combining the only backing vocals that come to the fore on the album, contained in the bridge.
This song did
not melt my face, but the song-writing meant it didn’t have to.
"Finally!" ...we
get to the albums masterpiece.
‘Better
Strangers’ is the track in which most of this album should have resembled.
The layering
of distorted bass guitar over a normal rock-steady bass line on this track is like
nothing else on the whole album, and conjures up an anthemic behemoth. The
heavy, head banging riff, morphing into the melodic chorus is like something
Queens of the Stone Age would have done on their last album, ‘…Like Clockwork’.
Kerr’s soloing on this track is fuzz heaven and once more, displays his work In
this regard, to be a strong point no matter what type of song in which it appears.
This track
took me on a journey.
This track
made me feel as if this band can produce the most exciting heavy rock music
of this generation.
This track,
every time, has and will, Melt my face off!
Going into
this album, riffs, fuzz and heaviness were the main attraction. But in
conjunction with that, Royal Blood’s supposed best friend also becomes their
worst enemy. Bringing forth “face melting” riffs also brings forth unfinished
tracks that don’t seem to get off the ground. I am left however with the sense
that this band can grow, and am anticipating already, the various ways in which
they aim to melt my face off more.
‘Royal Blood’ – Mixed Bag
