How Did We Get So Dark?
After countless concerts mainly in Europe, accompanying Foo Fighters part of his North American tour in 2015 and collaborating with the Vinyl series, produced by nothing more and nothing less than Mick Jagger and incurable blues lover Martin Scorsese , a few days ago Royal Blood presented their second studio effort, How Did We Get So Dark? , A record perhaps not as dark as the first but with tunes even more sticky and a sound with dyes of the most stylized peculiarities of the British.
In this Tom Dalgety returns to take the reins of the production and in him they emphasize the use of voices of background and accompaniment that are not alien to the namesake but in this it replicates this resource like to add much more musicality as well as harmonies to the subjects with Phrases ranging between pop and heavy rock. But of course you do not miss the prominent role of bass and drums because ultimately Mike Kerr (bass and vocals) and Ben Thatcher (drums) know what they do.
Mike Kerr, also a vocalist, has been able to demonstrate the noblest characteristics of the bass as his sensitivity to harmonics and hammer on to complement the riffs, also recording three voices from low one with distortion, another also with distortion but octave upwards, and One in clean, the latter two having a permeated appearance to highlight in a thoughtful way some touches inside the riff. There are also bass solos now adding bendings and wah pedal as in "Lights Out", first single from this album, or "Hook, Line and Sinker".
Meanwhile it seems that Ben has lowered the virtuosity a bit compared to the debut but in detail we realize that it is not so well emphasizing of course "Where Are You Now?", His contribution to Vinyl that re-recorded for this new plate and "Look Like You Know ", in addition to the well-known pitches and setbacks.
Without losing its dark essence but that is not so dark as to forbid the opportunity to listen to Royal Blood , some of this album of just 10 songs have certain peculiarities that show other faces of the duo, including the almost ballad "Do not Tell "; Similarly "She's Creeping" in which the apparent dissonance that causes the bass bending along with the voice remind us a bit to the alternative rock of the 90's to take us to a much more joyful and modern riff; And the last, in addition to one of my favorites, we have "I Only Lie When I Love You", perhaps the hardest, almost danceable, sticky rock with a chorus that sounds when entering and leaving the stanza to hook you to the first Heard.
It is also worth noting that on this album Kerr decides to show his skills with the keys, with which he is quite capable, in the piece "Hole In Your Heart" which is also one of the most sticky.
In general the disc presents some evolution in the band as far as the complementation of the musical thing and the use of new resources to go molding its sound that as in a young puberto still in development promises to become one of those bands that at least The most rockers we can not forget and maybe manage to slip into the lists of pop music and dethrone the best positioned as they have achieved in the UK.
