It’s hard to remember the last time a British rock band enjoyed an ascent as steep as Royal Blood’s – let alone one a fraction as fast. The Brighton duo have gone from clubs to arenas and festival headlining in a matter of one album – their chart-topping, self-titled 2014 debut. Have the rock masses really been so starved of riffs they can truly believe in? It would seem so.
Their second album How Did We Get So Dark? needs only dispense more of the same elemental heaviness – not to mention economical heaviness – to further supercharge the band’s rapid rise and rise. Mike Kerr plays effects-units thickened bass guitar and sings, Ben Thatcher whacks the drums – that’s pretty much all they require instruments wise.
Did Royal Blood not already sound enough like Muse, there’s some Muse-quality operatic daftness creeping in to the gothic coda of the title track. But brutalist basics prevail overall. Whether they’re stomping out their jams slow on She’s Creeping, or fast on Hook, Line and Sinker, these are some of the leanest, meanest riffs around, and they’ll take this pair far.
