Brighton born and bred Royal Blood are back with a brand new dance-influenced swagger in their 3rd album release Typhoons.
Typhoons merges Royal Blood's classic hard-rock sound with unexpected sonic references to 80s dance hall. Most people would probably wonder how in the hell do those genres even come close to one another? However, throughout listening to Typhoons you'll see how effortlessly Royal Blood mixes the two together to create something not only new for them as a band, but arguably new for rock as a whole.
Throughout Typhoons, you can still find the scuzzy guitars and full-frontal drum beats that have become a trademark of Royal Blood, but they're combined with synth-style interruptions and funkier basslines that bring this new era to life. Songs like 'Limbo' especially show this transition to a brighter and shinier version of themselves, with an introduction that sounds like it could be straight from the Stranger Things soundtrack until the rock instrumentals come in, and then the chorus which sounds straight from a disco dance track.
However, this isn't the end of genre-bending surprises on the album.
The band surprises the listener entirely with 'All We Have Is Now', the perfect closer track to the album. Here we see a simple piano ballad with echoey vocals on top - far more stripped back than anything Royal Blood has ever released before, both in instrumental and arguably lyrical content.
With verses such as 'If nothing lasts forever / And no one makes it out alive / I wanna spend our lives together / While we have the time", it would be difficult not to equate this with the struggles frontman Mike Kerr has been having with his sobriety and ensuring the rock and roll lifestyle didn't tear him apart.
Typhoons will appeal to long-standing fans of the band and a brand new audience which may have been difficult to access with their previous, far more intense releases. It's honest, it's got funk and swagger, and it has the energy of a love child between Nile Rogers and Queens of The Stone Age. If that doesn't convince you to listen, then nothing will.
RATING: 8/10