When it came time for Royal Blood to head back into the studio for their fourth album ‘Back To The Water Below’, they made the bold decision to prioritise gut instinct over sensibility. They’d just finished touring their third album, 2021’s ‘Typhoons’ in arenas across the globe, and the opportunity was there to have copied and pasted the formula to another success.
While ‘Typhoons’ saw them handing over some of the production credits to Paul Epworth (Adele, Florence + The Machine, U2) and Queens Of The Stone Age‘s Josh Homme, this time around, vocalist and bassist Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher opted to make the album themselves at their home studio in Brighton. It was a decision the lifelong friends made intentionally, realising that at the core of their success was their chemistry and trust in each other.
“Ben and I know each other so well, and this record was about being honest with each other,” Kerr recently told NME. “Self-producing it forced us to do things that came naturally to us.” The result is ‘Back To Water Below’, an album that highlights the band’s rock and roll instincts, self-knowledge and ability to generate something new with a bass, drums and zero hand holding.
The band have been on an upward trajectory since they released their debut self-titled album back in 2014 (NME noted that the duo focused on the noise and guts of their two-pronged assault), following it with 2017’s ‘How Did We Get So Dark’ which proved the band were anything but one hit album wonders. Then ‘Typhoons’ sealed the deal, so to speak, solidifying them not only as a tried and true rock duo but a Glastonbury Pyramid Stage-worthy band.
After making headlines this summer with an outburst at their “pathetic” crowd at Radio 1’s Big Weekend, here the pair block out all outside noise, return to their home studio and tap back into the undeniable chemistry that they made their name on.
With ‘Back To The Water Below’, they continue to put their money where their sound is, and album opener ‘Mountains At Midnight’ is the first evidence of that pursuit. It crashes in with a stir of distorted sound, heavy drumming and Kerr howling, “I’m a bruise you soothe / In your dancing shoes” over brash, high-tempo percussion. The track spirals and crashes, building up tension before breaking in the smooth delivery of the lines: “Crawling out on my bones / Till the break of the daylight”. It plays out like an escape, but only if you want to head back home to well-worn territory.
In the gritty, echoing ‘Shiner In The Dark’, the duo take on a more melodic tone, swaggering through a spiralling rock track and crooning “I got bruises” in a way that makes the damage almost sound desirable. ‘Pull Me Through’ poses as a sweet piano song before Royal Blood’s rock propensities take centre stage and a sinister beat breaks up the moments between the verses and the chorus and Kerr leans into the full wealth of his vocals as he confidently urges, “Heart swinging like a punch bag / Waiting on you /To pull me through,” with an air of surrender that traces every word.
There’s also ample evidence on the album that Kerr and Thatcher’s decision to take on production was a wise one. ‘The Firing Lane’ shows off a new depth of production for the duo, with lush piano keys crawling upwards right before they strip back the instrumentation, revealing a sonic simplicity that allows the storyline of losing oneself then wandering home to sit in the limelight.
‘Back To The Water Below’ feels like a return for Royal Blood. Honouring their gut, as Kerr said they did in the studio, has manifested fertile results for their band. “Whenever we do something really honest, it’s musically very powerful,” the bassist told NME. There’s power in trusting your instincts, and ‘Back To The Water Below’ backs that assertion.
