Royal Blood | Loppylugs

Submitted by Matthew Baker on 29 October 2014 - 10:31pm

We nominated albums from the Mercury Music Prize shortlist 2014

Cover:

Artist:

Royal Blood

album-ID:

a_160

Nationality:

Year:

2 014

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

Out of the Black*Come On Over*Figure It Out*You Can Be So Cruel*Blood Hands*Little Monster*Loose Change*Careless*Ten Tonne Skeleton*Better Strangers

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_62

Now-num:

2 014

Spotify-URL:

0BFzNaeaNv4mahOzwZFGHK

Grooveshark-URL:

Royal+Blood/9752580

Short-title:

royalBlood

nominator-ID:

u_2

Meeting-date:

Wednesday, 11 February 2015

MusicBrainz-URL:

1e4a055a-e3de-4b82-bc34-cd6ac1967835

Wikipedia-URL:

Royal_Blood_(album)

Spotify-link-type:

album

Metacritic-URL:

royal-blood/royal-blood

Discogs-URL:

Royal-Blood-Royal-Blood/master/723797

Allmusic-URL:

royal-blood-mw0002697659

rdio-URL:

Royal_Blood

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109

117

reviewers-IDs data

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-14-

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70

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

Out of the Black Country

1-4

2-9

A Black Country rock pastiche, from someone who has overdosed on Sabbath and Zeppelin. As such it is a great sound and very well made, there is a bit of a White Stripes sound thrown in too, but you still have to score them 0 for originality.

It doesn’t vary and a whole album of it is hard work because it is such a simple direct sound without any particular colouration. I did enjoy this more when I first started playing it and as I’ve played it more I’ve probably appreciated it less.

The singing is good in that style and delivers that kind of feel convincingly. And there are a fair few decent tunes / riffs to enjoy. I’m not so sure about the lyrics, it feels like just a collection of clichés that don’t really amount to much. It all fits the vibe but they're pretty empty. One example that I wrestled with was:

I wish I cared less but im afraid I don’t / You couldn’t care less, so I guess you wont / Change your mind again

I did waste some precious moments of my life trying to figure out what that could mean but in the end I gave up and regret not doing so earlier. The words get a bit much after a while and I feel they give away the intellectual weight of the band or lack of. If you manage to ignore the lyrics you are probably at an advantage.

The sound is a well polished clone of early 70s British rock, impressive but…
70

reviewed by

Richard Norbury
60

reviewed by

Matthew Baker

Divide and conquer

2

Fairly one-dimensional, but they create a big sound for just a two piece. Very effective use of octave and fuzz pedals....
56

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

Yo blood, rock the bass

The rather interesting fact about this band is that all the guitar sounds (which could easily pass as a bass and two guitars) are all done by one guy with a bass. And an amazing bank of pedals. Clever stuff. But for me, it's a bit pointless being the clever if the end result is just another generic rock band with zero originality. Good sound well delivered but no memorable tracks and no desire to press Play again.