This was the second positive thing to come out of the delightful Sussex seaside town this week, the other being the release of Typhoons, the third album from the Brighton-based Royal Blood, and one which takes their formula into somewhat new territory without straying too far from the overdriven-bass funk-rock of their self-titled 2014 debut and its 2017 follow-up How Did We Get So Dark?.
It’s a shift that sees Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher switch on the glitterball and have a crack at applying their trademark sound to the dance floor. This isn’t, evidently, a continuation of last year’s pandemic-reaction mini disco revival by Kylie, Dua Lipa, Charli XCX and others, but in part the result of the duo wishing to give their music a bit more colour, and in part, Kerr getting giving up drink and recreational drugs. “My life had become unmanageable,” he said in a Facebook post, reflecting on two years of sobriety. “Had I not done this, this album would not exist along with lots of other things I dread to think about. I came out of the dark and into the light and this is exactly what this album represents. No matter how bad the storm, all things must pass.”
Perhaps Typhoons’ exuberance can be put down to the moment of clarity Kerr reached, setting out with Thatcher to tapping their shared love of Goldfrapp and Daft Punk, making a “a very confident and joyous leap forwards” in the process. Nowhere is this more apparent than the single Boilermaker, co-produced by Josh Homme and Paul Epworth which, during pre-lockdown live previews proved to be an instant crowd pleaser. Actually, now I know the Homme connection, the more I recognise the familiarity with Queens Of The Stone Age’s groovier moments. Critics in search of a label with this album will probably have to go round the houses trying to find one. Opener (and the album’s first single) Trouble’s Coming sets the tone with something that could be likened to a heavier version of The Power Station, while Limbo - seemingly a confession by Kerr on wondering how he managed to wake up each morning after caning it the night before - takes some of the rock’n’boogie of Zeppelin’s Dancing Days in its dance floor swagger.
If there was one valid criticism of Royal Blood’s first two albums it was that they remained fairly fixed in their formula. Like Ben Folds eschewing traditional rock guitar for heavily distorted piano, Kerr had done the same with the bass, cleverly reinventing the instrument (or, perhaps, showing a player like Flea what a bass guitar could really do) to drive the band’s sound, not as its rhythmic foundation but as its melodic heartbeat. Not that Typhoons is a single-track road: there are hints to pysch-rock, Motown string sections, the universal disco reference point of Chic and, yes, the aforementioned Daft Punk. And there is also the closing track, All We Have Is Now, which is more piano ballad than anything else, with the ivory-tinkling underscoring the most personal, reflective lyrics on the album: “If nothing lasts forever/And no one makes it out alive/I wanna spend our lives together/While we have the time”.
Typhoons might be mostly Kerr’s personal look back over his recent journey, but together with Thatcher they’ve produced an album that captures the mood we all should be feeling right now. I, if I wasn’t under medical instructions to remain immobile for a few weeks, would be cutting a rug to it. But, perhaps more importantly, it’s a statement of just how far the Brighton duo have moved on, continuing to reinvent the rock genre in the way that they were wowing festival crowds before The Great Plague came along, but also throwing off whatever baggage - intensely personal or creatively - that might have impeded them in the past.
No comments:
Post a Comment