Here it is people! 2017 is almost out the door and these are our 10 favorite albums of the year:
02: Royal Blood – How did we get so dark
Sophomore albums tend to be a tricky thing for any band that made it with their first album. Having to prove that they were not a fluke is no easy task. Even more so for a band like Royal Blood that has been praised by some of the “gods” of rock n roll.
After all it’s not every day that Jimmy Page and Dave Grohl talk publicly about a band saying things like “their music is like lava coming from a volcano” and “they’re fucking awesome”. It’s not every day that a new band gets to go on huge tours supporting the Foo Fighters and Queens of the stone age. At the same time some have argued that Royal Blood is amongst the bands that prove rock is not dead.
The duo from Brighton responded to the pressure and came back with a second album that is equally good, if not better than their first. And they did so managing to stay true to the things that made them successful to begin with while adding new elements to their game, such as a few backing vocals (where there were none in their debut album) and even a dark retro-funk organ on ‘Hole in your heart’.
All in all, How did we get so dark is a great rock n’ roll (sound stripped down to only the essentials) album, in a time when rock n’ roll bands are a rarity. And people love it, as can be confirmed by anyone who has had the chance to see Royal Blood play live this year.
