Back To The Water Below by Royal Blood comes from the same realm as their previous. Let’s ponder the question: has the British band been able to dig deeper and exceed the expectations set by Typhoons? The production is theirs, and they take us to the deep ends. It might be their calmest record so far, yet it still has a bite.
Indeed, calmest doesn’t mean it’s a lot more delicate, let’s be assured. Kerr’s bass is still extraordinarily rough, and Thatcher’s drums are deep. And of all its tracks, the album has its fair share of bangers.
Mountains At Midnight is the kind of introduction we were expecting from the duo. Infernal, precise and saturated, the band gets to the heights of the genre, spinning our heads around. There’s a real chill in the air when Kerr’s voice is flying. Audacious, this first track is merely a hint of what’s to come.
Hurt but not down, Kerr seems taken into a battle between his introspection and a powerful and lustrous rock filled with instincts. There is a contrast here that mixes things up and gives birth to tracks like Shiner In The Dark and Back To The Water Below. The golden jellyfish on the cover certainly has a glow, a charm, like a metamorphosed siren. A metaphor of vices and additions? Maybe.
The Firing Line sounds like a dream and adds a routine to it – the result is like quicksand: one can easily get blocked into a series of bad habits that bring comfort whilst being the source of anxiety. Here, the piano adds a soft dimension to the end of the track and its dream-turned-to-nightmare atmosphere, before continuing with the infinite loop of habit.
As for Tell Me When It’s Too Late, it looks more like an honest conversation between two people who trust and know each other better than anybody else. There’s a form of anger in the bass and in the drums that seem to clash together in the chorus, while there’s a form of harmony in the verses.
Then arrives Triggers that will find an echo in a lot of listeners. The ravishing guitar riffs that open the track say it all. Kerr and Thatcher become experts in hypnosis and drag us down in a chaotic vertigo we can’t get enough of. It’s striking.
Once more, the abyss is flirting with the band on How Many More Times, where the themes of failure, wait, patience, and frustration meet and resonate along with the fear of letting the dark and mysterious waters sallow the solitary soul, drift away. On High Waters, the same soul seems to accept what’s surrounding him, but not before a fierce, raging, and brave fight. The sound explodes like their pride.
There Goes My Cool takes the poor soul down… and Waves is their demand to not let them choke there and then. Musically, we dive too, achieving that tumultuous spin to the depths the band has decided we needed to go through. The shards of electro on the record add glass to the water. A risk to get a deep cut.
After the wind, it is water that Brighton’s rock duet has chosen for their new studio record. As capricious as the previous, it will fight with the wind happily. Yet, we notice how different they’ve approached the subject. The band doesn’t drown and isn’t overpowered by it. They dance with it, sometimes with graceful moves and sounds, sometimes not without a clash, all until all settle, quiet down, and slide under. That’s this acceptance that makes it all softer, and calmer. Realistically, the chaos isn’t far, and that’s why we are passionate about this alum. Trusting each other with the production of Back to The Water Below, Royal Blood knows what’s best for them. It works.
For our vinyl edition, it is Blood Records’ Zoetrope that caught our each. As hypnotic as the narrative that we just listened to, it is an incredibly detailed item – the jellyfish reminds us of the electric shock the band is able to create in each of their track, from the strongest to the calmest.