Royal Blood

How Did We Get So Dark?

Here on second album ‘How Did We Get So Dark?’, we welcome another 40 minutes of Royal Blood exploring their home turf on 10 shamelessly melodic rock monsters that hit home like a nail gun to the eardrum.

‘How Did We Get So Dark?’ is one hell of a beast; but while their first outing had as much subtlety as a whack around the face, this time they’ve born a more considered - but sinister - creature.

'How Did We Get So Dark?' is unlikely to win over critics who prefer their licks raw and vocals scratchy. There's nothing Real with a capital 'R' here, it's a record intended for garnering groupies, not scathingly disassembling modern life. 

How Did We Get So Dark? has plenty of appeal, possibly just edging the debut, and is the sound of a band enjoying their niche, but how long that can last has to be the concern here.

It lacks the same amount of truly great songs their debut offered. Still, there are few bands that can match Royal Blood at their heavy, melodic best, and How Did We Get So Dark? proves to be a thrilling - if limited - listen from one of the UK’s fastest-rising rock bands.

It sees the band move forward from, and in many ways improve upon, what they were already good at, with a few – mostly worthwhile – new ideas thrown in for good measure. On the other hand, what evolution we do get is minimal and not quite enough to fully justify the less anthemic tone of the album.

How Did We Get So Dark? is a big, grown-up rock album with all the riffs and compositional disappearing down rabbit holes we've come to yearn for from Royal Blood, but there are several songs here that are also primed for radio.

Despite how thunderous Thatcher sounds behind the drums or how dirty Kerr's bass tone is, unfortunately there isn't a pedal for more robust and compelling songwriting. That said, you'll probably be headbanging too much to care.

Royal Blood’s energies here are expended not on expansive outreach but intensive simplicity: any added layers simply buttress the basic riffs of tracks.

The duo hurl everything at them – harmonies, killer bass sounds, presumably the studio’s kitchen sink – but the tunes aren’t nearly as strong as, say, the first album’s Ten Tonne Skeleton.