So what are we to make of 2014’s most hotly tipped new band? At Download, the demand to see this drums’n’bass duo was such that the canvas they performed under was clearly three or four sizes too small, so there’s a definite real-world buzz, but what new and exciting tricks are Royal Blood pulling?
The answer would appear to be none: it’s Supergrass’s Gaz Coombes fronting Queens Of The Stone Age, or Muse’s Matt Bellamy writing melodies for Alice In Chains. Everywhere you look you’ll find other bands, from Them Crooked Vultures to The White Stripes.
So there’s a distinct whiff of ‘emperor’s new clothes’ to this racket, but who cares when it’s cut from such fine cloth? This is a classic, thrusting, tune-filled debut, from the juddering Out Of The Black to the seesaw blues-rock of Better Strangers, via the huge singles Little Monster and Come On Over. It never lags, which is all the more remarkable when you consider the limited palette in use (remember, there’s no guitar on the album). Buy it now. Buy it hard.
