Royal Blood Essentials

Within a deceptively elemental framework—drums and bass played in stormy, vigorous harmony—Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher create a multitude of intriguing textures. Across their first two albums, they brought the rock thunder via swarming riffs and ’70s harmonies (“Lights Out”), blues-flavoured firecrackers (“Loose Change”) and the pursuit of experimental impulses (“Hook, Line & Sinker”, which uncorks hiccuping percussion, half-sung spoken word and piercing falsetto). For the duo from Brighton, the key is understanding the difference between pushing your music into interesting new places and just being radical for the sake of it. “When bands try and do something out of their comfort zone, they end up doing something where they feel and look uncomfortable,” singer and bassist Kerr tells Apple Music about the making of their third album, Typhoons. “I didn’t want to do something out of my comfort zone. I wanted to do something I hadn’t done before.” They found that fresh something by tracing a through line between hard rock and dance music, giving the nickname “AC Disco” to the lithe grooves of “Trouble’s Coming” and “Typhoons”.