Review Summary: ...and stay there.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A copycat rock band takes a couple steps away from their established sound only to be chastised for not copying hard enough. They then release a “return to roots” record that neither innovates on nor fully recaptures that sound, reining some of their old fans back in, but effectively ending any chance at a wider audience.
Royal Blood is that band, and
Back to the Water Below is definitely that record.
The thing is, the roots weren’t that strong to begin with. Back in the day, I proudly celebrated Royal Blood’s mix of Jack White-ian blues-rock with the propulsion and dynamism of their Queens of the Stone Age idols. But this brand of high-concept pilfering only succeeds in the strength of its songs, and the band has never recreated the thunderous heights of “Out of the Black” or “Figure it Out.” That being said, they’re sure dead-set on trying.
Back to the Water Below is stacked with such (failed) attempts. The opener “Mountains at Midnight” tears out of the gate with a hard-rock sound so formless that it feels like the band left you dangling on a mountainside you just can’t grasp. Meanwhile, “Tell Me When It’s Too Late” is built around a riff so simple it could’ve been written in binary. And if the band’s instrumental dynamics feel a little lacking this time, Mike Kerr’s forced croons will quickly elicit a distracted wince. Going beyond “reaching,” Kerr grabs the spotlight of “Shiner in the Dark”’s chorus with a prolonged whine so desperate for genre points he might as well be singing about working in a coal mine. This is second to the Queen-esque atrocity of “There Goes My Cool,” complete with chiming guitar wankery and Kerr’s head-shaking Mercury-inspired delivery of the title line.
Which isn’t to imply that the album’s at its worst when it thinks outside the box—it perks up in the back-half with “How Many More Times” and “High Waters,” both synth-laden rockers that are also the tracks that would’ve best fit comfortably on 2021’s
Typhoons. It is not a coincidence that these are the highlights. While their previous record was misguided in many ways, the band’s attempts to freshen their sound with dance and disco influences were hardly fruitless—tracks like “Limbo” and “Typhoons” were not only vastly enjoyable pop-rock slices, but sounded like the band was having the most fun they’ve had since their debut.
But this is a Very Serious Real Rock Record—and winking at the camera was the only thing saving them last time. Displaying a clear lack of faith in their own creative direction, Royal Blood bought into fan pressure to shed their glitz and glamour. But in trying to preserve the bombasticism of Typhoons while sacrificing the rest of its pleasures, they’ve hit a brick wall. At its most accomplished,
Back to the Water Below stands as a decent regurgitation of the riff-based songwriting they had already once established and abandoned. At its worst, the record’s title acts as a fitting euphemism for their sonic backslide. If Royal Blood truly have gone back to the water below, maybe it’s best they stay there.
