Ladies and Gentlemen and all 68 other genders... Royal Blood!
April 17, 2015 8:10 PM Subscribe
If The White Stripes and Queens of The Stone Age had a baby... Millennials, congratulations. You made something I love.
The bludgeoning opener to Royal Blood's self-titled debut, Out of the Black is a riff-fueled onslaught that belies their two-piece status; with just a heavily processed bass guitar and a drum set between them, they make some four-piece rock bands look inconsequential.
You're welcome.
I think I've heard this song on the radio lately and just thought it was Muse. Cool!
with just a heavily processed bass guitar and a drum set between them
If you like this concept you owe it to yourself to listen to the amazing album You're a Woman, I'm a Machine by Death From Above 1979.
posted by capricorn at 8:20 PM on April 17, 2015 [9 favorites]
with just a heavily processed bass guitar and a drum set between them
If you like this concept you owe it to yourself to listen to the amazing album You're a Woman, I'm a Machine by Death From Above 1979.
posted by capricorn at 8:20 PM on April 17, 2015 [9 favorites]
Um, fyi, the second link is not safe for work by a fucking long shot. But it was a lot of fun.
posted by ashbury at 8:24 PM on April 17, 2015
posted by ashbury at 8:24 PM on April 17, 2015
What Capricorn done already said, and The Flat Duojets, anything by them really.
posted by mcrandello at 8:32 PM on April 17, 2015
posted by mcrandello at 8:32 PM on April 17, 2015
the second link is not safe for work by a fucking long shot
Easter is cancelled
posted by thelonius at 8:35 PM on April 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
Easter is cancelled
posted by thelonius at 8:35 PM on April 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
dig that superjail style.
posted by boo_radley at 8:38 PM on April 17, 2015
posted by boo_radley at 8:38 PM on April 17, 2015
Bass and drums you say?
Edit: capricorn beat me to it.
posted by echocollate at 8:38 PM on April 17, 2015 [1 favorite]
Edit: capricorn beat me to it.
posted by echocollate at 8:38 PM on April 17, 2015 [1 favorite]
Nice song. Too bad about the video.
posted by ob1quixote at 8:51 PM on April 17, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by ob1quixote at 8:51 PM on April 17, 2015 [1 favorite]
If you like this concept [...] Death From Above 1979.
1. Inbreds
2. Duotang
3. Death From Above 1979
Nice try, Royal Blood, but next time do it more Canadianly.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:05 PM on April 17, 2015 [9 favorites]
1. Inbreds
2. Duotang
3. Death From Above 1979
Nice try, Royal Blood, but next time do it more Canadianly.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:05 PM on April 17, 2015 [9 favorites]
ya
posted by philip-random at 9:33 PM on April 17, 2015
posted by philip-random at 9:33 PM on April 17, 2015
If we're all determined to have a bass/drum super-heavy-duo fest, I hope we're not skipping GodHeadSilo.
(and yes, here's their In The Air Tonight cover).
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 9:33 PM on April 17, 2015 [3 favorites]
(and yes, here's their In The Air Tonight cover).
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 9:33 PM on April 17, 2015 [3 favorites]
This is the wolfmother of duo-bands...consider that not a compliment
posted by Divest_Abstraction at 9:44 PM on April 17, 2015
posted by Divest_Abstraction at 9:44 PM on April 17, 2015
Bad to the bone.... I was hoping that cashier would reappear.
posted by stinkfoot at 9:46 PM on April 17, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by stinkfoot at 9:46 PM on April 17, 2015 [1 favorite]
Oh jesus fuck do we all need to mention our favorite bass/drums band now?
Lightning Bolt.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:01 PM on April 17, 2015 [8 favorites]
Lightning Bolt.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:01 PM on April 17, 2015 [8 favorites]
I'm just delighted that it has to be called bass/drums so as to not be confused with drums & bass music. And I'm also happy that there's more music that sounds in the vicinity of QOTSA, because QOTSA is great.
posted by JauntyFedora at 10:36 PM on April 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by JauntyFedora at 10:36 PM on April 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
Holy shit, that video.
posted by limeonaire at 10:40 PM on April 17, 2015
posted by limeonaire at 10:40 PM on April 17, 2015
"If The White Stripes and Queens of The Stone Age had a baby"
I'm partial to the "If Heartattack and Vine-era Tom Waits had never met Kathleen Brennan" sound of Black Diamond Heavies (if we're talking about two piece bands that are throwin' out something special).
posted by komara at 10:44 PM on April 17, 2015 [4 favorites]
I'm partial to the "If Heartattack and Vine-era Tom Waits had never met Kathleen Brennan" sound of Black Diamond Heavies (if we're talking about two piece bands that are throwin' out something special).
posted by komara at 10:44 PM on April 17, 2015 [4 favorites]
Apparently my city's police department sent around an advisory to local radio stations asking them not to play Figure it Out because it was making people speed. This lead to one my most enjoyable rush hours ever, when one DJ would only take drive time requests for songs that made you want to put your foot down.
posted by figurant at 10:51 PM on April 17, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by figurant at 10:51 PM on April 17, 2015 [6 favorites]
yeees, keep the recommendations coming!
posted by Foci for Analysis at 11:52 PM on April 17, 2015
posted by Foci for Analysis at 11:52 PM on April 17, 2015
Black Diamond Heavies are the best 2 piece in contemporary dirty rock/R&B, Komara. Good guys, too.
posted by still bill at 12:14 AM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by still bill at 12:14 AM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]
If we're talking about noisy, snotty-nosed young rock duos from the UK, the new Drenge album is pretty damned good.
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:50 AM on April 18, 2015
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:50 AM on April 18, 2015
I really liked that video. The music was pretty ok, too.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:30 AM on April 18, 2015
posted by From Bklyn at 2:30 AM on April 18, 2015
Kids these days think they invented this stuff (Ruins, ca 1988).
posted by ardgedee at 2:45 AM on April 18, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by ardgedee at 2:45 AM on April 18, 2015 [3 favorites]
The video is just stupid. But the music makes me very, very happy.
posted by MexicanYenta at 3:45 AM on April 18, 2015
posted by MexicanYenta at 3:45 AM on April 18, 2015
This is pretty good, and they sound like they'd probably be a blast live(especially in a small space) but... i don't know. It just doesn't quite 100% do it for me.
There's some hard to define X factor that puts bands like lightning bolt, DFA, and yea the white stripes over the top. They all brought something new to the table, or picked up a sound that was being ignored at the time.
This just sounds like a more radio friendly version of half of the garage-y bands i know of in seattle right now, some of which have even gotten some airtime on KEXP. It's very much of the moment, rather than bringing something new to it. It's just a bit more stripped down and cleaned up. It also very obviously sounds like some of the bands mentioned up thread did a decade ago, or somewhere a bit less.
Lightning bolt, a few years ago, was different enough that they packed out a local underground venue to the point that there was a HUGE mob of angry people outside pissed off they couldn't get in. Hell, that show(which was one of the last for that fairly large space) might have even played a small role in the place getting shut down. They just sounded different, in a pretty brash way. And this wasn't even when they were first getting started, this was years in to their existence.
Don't get me wrong, i don't hate it... or even really dislike it. It just doesn't sound like anything new to me.
posted by emptythought at 4:40 AM on April 18, 2015 [6 favorites]
There's some hard to define X factor that puts bands like lightning bolt, DFA, and yea the white stripes over the top. They all brought something new to the table, or picked up a sound that was being ignored at the time.
This just sounds like a more radio friendly version of half of the garage-y bands i know of in seattle right now, some of which have even gotten some airtime on KEXP. It's very much of the moment, rather than bringing something new to it. It's just a bit more stripped down and cleaned up. It also very obviously sounds like some of the bands mentioned up thread did a decade ago, or somewhere a bit less.
Lightning bolt, a few years ago, was different enough that they packed out a local underground venue to the point that there was a HUGE mob of angry people outside pissed off they couldn't get in. Hell, that show(which was one of the last for that fairly large space) might have even played a small role in the place getting shut down. They just sounded different, in a pretty brash way. And this wasn't even when they were first getting started, this was years in to their existence.
Don't get me wrong, i don't hate it... or even really dislike it. It just doesn't sound like anything new to me.
posted by emptythought at 4:40 AM on April 18, 2015 [6 favorites]
I listened to that a few times and should have loved it but it just wasn't doing it for me. I kept thinking it was missing something. Then it dawned on me what it was sorely missing....bass guitar! Real bass guitar as a rhythm instrument.
There's a reason most bands have one.
posted by rocket88 at 6:38 AM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]
There's a reason most bands have one.
posted by rocket88 at 6:38 AM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]
emptythought - you've hit the nail on the head. RB is okay - a radio-friendly riff machine, but with no cutting edge... nothing new. The RB LP came out a few weeks before DFA1979's new LP and (to me) there is a huge gulf between the two - both are bass/drums/vox but RB have written the same song ten times and the effect wears off after a few listens whereas the DFA LP hits you between the eyes and stay there. DFA is still on heavy rotation here, the RB LP is somewhere in the pile.
posted by the_very_hungry_caterpillar at 6:45 AM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by the_very_hungry_caterpillar at 6:45 AM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]
If you haven't heard Ed Schrader's Music Beat, they're a "bass & drum" two piece that are... well... different. I love 'em.
posted by Acey at 7:11 AM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Acey at 7:11 AM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]
All 68 other genders? I don't get it. What am I missing?
posted by Brocktoon at 7:19 AM on April 18, 2015
posted by Brocktoon at 7:19 AM on April 18, 2015
No discussion of riff-fueled two-pieces is complete without Jucifer.
(Link is to a 20-min video of them live in a Moscow studio, because the only thing better than 5 minutes of Jucifer is 20 minutes of Jucifer.)
posted by soundguy99 at 7:32 AM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]
(Link is to a 20-min video of them live in a Moscow studio, because the only thing better than 5 minutes of Jucifer is 20 minutes of Jucifer.)
posted by soundguy99 at 7:32 AM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]
Whether Royal Blood is any good, or better than whatever North American bands there are out there on the scene at the moment that share the same instrumentation, isn't really the point. Royal Blood was the best selling rock album in the UK since 2010. That's the context of Royal Blood's importance: they've demonstrated that a strong market exists for meat and potatoes R&R in the wake of the heat death of the much-derided landfill indie phenomenon in about 2008. They're one of a bunch of young, emerging, nakedly commercial British rock bands with, apparently, serious music industry money behind them: Wolf Alice, Darlia, The Bohicas, and Superfood among them. After almost a decade where the very existence of British rock has attracted only knee jerk derision from the mainstream press (I remember one Guardian journalist objecting to alt-J winning the Mercury Prize because this wasn't alt-rock's "era"), it's an interesting development. And while I don't think any of this is the best British rock getting written at the moment, I'm not going to knock it. Royal Blood is good, atavistic fun and Wolf Alice, well they had me 15 seconds into "Moaning Lisa Smile" when ... well, turn the volume up, listen to the guitars and you'll see what I mean.
posted by Sonny Jim at 7:58 AM on April 18, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by Sonny Jim at 7:58 AM on April 18, 2015 [7 favorites]
Metafilter and Pitchfork have similar critical DNA which kind of bums me out.
Do we really need to fractal out the source of someone else's joy from the lens of our own experience?
I'm not as smart as many of you but I still know how to sniff out something I like and just fucking enjoy it without rejecting it because it doesn't pair well with a fine cheese or an artisanal ale.
I'm not a scene chaser anymore, I'm not super cool, I just like stuff and I am happy to pass it on.
Clearly, I'm losing my edge.
posted by bobdow at 9:13 AM on April 18, 2015 [5 favorites]
Do we really need to fractal out the source of someone else's joy from the lens of our own experience?
I'm not as smart as many of you but I still know how to sniff out something I like and just fucking enjoy it without rejecting it because it doesn't pair well with a fine cheese or an artisanal ale.
I'm not a scene chaser anymore, I'm not super cool, I just like stuff and I am happy to pass it on.
Clearly, I'm losing my edge.
posted by bobdow at 9:13 AM on April 18, 2015 [5 favorites]
bobdow, I'm happy for the introduction to Royal Blood, some of whose stuff I've probably heard before, but I never got around to putting a band name to it. Now I have.
And you would've thought that Friday evening (here on the West Coast anyway) would've been a safe time to lay it down. But whatever. Experts are gonna expert. Nothing I haven't been guilty of in the past.
I enjoyed the vid, too.
posted by philip-random at 9:50 AM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]
And you would've thought that Friday evening (here on the West Coast anyway) would've been a safe time to lay it down. But whatever. Experts are gonna expert. Nothing I haven't been guilty of in the past.
I enjoyed the vid, too.
posted by philip-random at 9:50 AM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't know about anyone else, but I had a blast of an afternoon thanks to this FPP. Keep them coming, bobdow!
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:03 PM on April 18, 2015
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:03 PM on April 18, 2015
I missed that bobdow was the original poster. bobdow, my friend, you just gotta learn to ignore the people who enjoy not enjoying things. I want people who know how to sniff out something they like to have MetaFilter be the first place they think to share it.
posted by benito.strauss at 1:47 PM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by benito.strauss at 1:47 PM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]
Metafilter and Pitchfork have similar critical DNA which kind of bums me out.
I'm not as smart as many of you but I still know how to sniff out something I like and just fucking enjoy it without rejecting it because it doesn't pair well with a fine cheese or an artisanal ale.
One person said, "It just doesn't quite 100% do it for me," and another said, "a radio-friendly riff machine, but with no cutting edge... nothing new." A couple other people didn't care for the video. This is the full extent of the negativity you have received from MetaFilter for this post. It's barely negative at all!
The rest of us are just sharing, like you shared. As you say, "You're welcome." If that's what you're responding to -- if you're reading 'if you like that then maybe you'll like this too' as 'your favourite band sucks and you are a big dumb stupid,' then perhaps (and I mean this sincerely) you should consult a psychiatrist, because that is just no way to live.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:10 PM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm not as smart as many of you but I still know how to sniff out something I like and just fucking enjoy it without rejecting it because it doesn't pair well with a fine cheese or an artisanal ale.
One person said, "It just doesn't quite 100% do it for me," and another said, "a radio-friendly riff machine, but with no cutting edge... nothing new." A couple other people didn't care for the video. This is the full extent of the negativity you have received from MetaFilter for this post. It's barely negative at all!
The rest of us are just sharing, like you shared. As you say, "You're welcome." If that's what you're responding to -- if you're reading 'if you like that then maybe you'll like this too' as 'your favourite band sucks and you are a big dumb stupid,' then perhaps (and I mean this sincerely) you should consult a psychiatrist, because that is just no way to live.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:10 PM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]
Ok look, I was reluctant about saying it earlier but I've had a couple beers and its late-
They're a pretty good band, no doubt, but I liked them better before they sold out... I mean back when I was first into them, when they still had that other guy the one on melodeon, then they were really breaking into something new. Now, you know, they're good and all, but I just feel like they'll never recapture that free, melodeon/trombone glockenspiel jam band thing thing they had going on...
But hell, 'A chacun son goût' and so on.
posted by From Bklyn at 3:42 PM on April 18, 2015
They're a pretty good band, no doubt, but I liked them better before they sold out... I mean back when I was first into them, when they still had that other guy the one on melodeon, then they were really breaking into something new. Now, you know, they're good and all, but I just feel like they'll never recapture that free, melodeon/trombone glockenspiel jam band thing thing they had going on...
But hell, 'A chacun son goût' and so on.
posted by From Bklyn at 3:42 PM on April 18, 2015
Ehn, some of us are just more sensitive to criticism. We've given him two choices on how to respond to negative comments, SysRq: "don't let it bother you" or "you're too sensitive". He can choose which one he wants to adopt, if either, but I hope he chooses one that keeps the music coming.
posted by benito.strauss at 3:51 PM on April 18, 2015
posted by benito.strauss at 3:51 PM on April 18, 2015
OK, because every thread needs a mixtape, I made a collaborative Spotify Playlist inspired by how this thread turned out. Enjoy. Or not.
posted by Sonny Jim at 9:29 AM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Sonny Jim at 9:29 AM on April 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
Their "Little Monster" song has been my favorite for a while, ever since it debuted on Octane.
posted by Grease at 3:09 PM on April 19, 2015
posted by Grease at 3:09 PM on April 19, 2015
My comment didn't mean I didn't like them. I do. I just can't figure out why he plays a bass processed to sound like a guitar. Just play a guitar already.
And lay down a proper bass line...most of these sougs would be better for it.
posted by rocket88 at 11:57 AM on April 21, 2015
And lay down a proper bass line...most of these sougs would be better for it.
posted by rocket88 at 11:57 AM on April 21, 2015
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Cheers!
posted by flippant at 8:16 PM on April 17, 2015