Royal Blood bring the bite.
The experienced rock duo return three years after their previous LP with Dead Company, the group’s fifth studio album, released November 6th via Warner UK. Led by four singles, the ten-track project is tight, concise, energetic and driven.
Of the four singles, the best is definitely the opener and title track, “Dead Company”. It provides a biting, punchy start to the record, with the immediate aggression of the instrumental setting the tone and setting the energy bar instantly high. The fast pace of another of the singles, “Swallow The Bomb”, right after it continues this trend, leaving the listener no room to relax as the album’s intensity remains at a high level – and this goes on throughout the rest of the tracklist as well.
The album’s high energy is one of its strongest traits. It is unrelenting and dark, with many tracks having quite a menacing sound to them. The grooves are also very well-executed, making the album easy and enjoyable to dance and move to. The instrumental soundscape and production are the main driver behind this energy, with the guitar tones being clear and crisp and packing some real muscle.
The unfortunate side of this is that vocalist Mike Kerr doesn’t always sound like he’s entirely keeping up. His softer, more subtly menacing vocals have their charm, and function well in most instances, but there are moments where he lacks the grit and edge to match the raging guitars, and the instrumental begins to drown him out somewhat. Aside from that, though, the mixing is another major strength of the album’s sonic identity – the songs are put together excellently, with the instrumental wrapping itself around the listener in constant, fierce waves.
If there is a true central flaw of the record, it’s that it gets a little repetitive. Royal Blood play it fairly safe on this LP, playing to their strengths without much experimentation; while, because of how dynamic the songs themselves are, this takes a while to set in, it does become noticeable towards the end of record, with the exception of the cinematic closer, aptly titled “The Closer”, which is the album’s final standout track, with a blistering outro riff and great ambience. The other tracks beyond the halfway point, though, are rather unremarkable, and end up blending into one another quite a bit upon listening to the whole album. In general, though, the album still does enough to be entertaining.
Overall, Dead Company is probably the best Royal Blood album since their self-titled debut. It’s well-produced, intense and engaging, if a bit formulaic at times – sonically, it’s still very satisfying for the majority of its runtime. For the most part, it’s an album that manages to almost benefit from not chasing anything overly complex or revolutionary – it’s a simple, straightforward listening experience that is fun on a baseline level that many will be able to enjoy.
7.0/10
