Royal Blood

Travisthedog

How fucking good are they?

Love it - best new band I've picked up on in ages. Just watching them at reading - sooooo much noise for two blokes and only bass

DiscoStu

Aye, they've nailed the 2-piece thing way better than White Stripes and the like.

Rifftastic!

monquixote

Superb, best band I've heard in years. 

Travisthedog

How many effects must he use to fill the sound like that!!

And @monquixote, I'm sure at reading he was using 2 supersonics!!!

monquixote

Hypersonic!

Travisthedog

From 32 seconds - defo supersonics

bigfuzz

two supersonics, when the lad switches to the starcaster bass.. filth. actually made me consider picking up a bass and a muff..

DiscoStu

I haz bass.

I haz Muff.

I haz two Whammys.

Hmmm.....

chrisj1602

I read he uses POGs

Deijavoo

2 x POG2s.. 

Lixarto

fretmeister

Here is his pedal board

https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/t31.0-8/p720x720/10380642_10152496092003726_9050875833974133511_o.jpg

2 Pogs, 2 Boss Harmonizers, Zvex Distortron, Strymon Flint, Boss EQ, Boss LS-2 Line Selector, Boss tuner, Palmer Triage.

Effectively (see what I did there!) He can shift the octave from where he is playing (so up or down) and then use the Harmonizers to add the other chord elements individually. So Play an E (signal into the bass amp), but the octave up signal goes into the harmonizers to add a 5th or Octave (or both) to create the chord and then run that into the guitar amps.

The signal path isn't difficult or even original, but it is the first time I've seen it in a duo to get rid of guitars. Usually the approach is used when a 3 piece don't want to get a keyboard player!

I quite like the tunes I've heard so far, but I'd like to hear more- I have a suspicion it might limit every tune to sounding very similar.

monquixote

I think that's a Mastotron rather than a Distortron. 

I've seen quite a few people who's sound I really like using them so I think an investment might be in order.

fretmeister

you might be right there!

And that would make a lot more sense on a bass!

fretmeister

Yup - deffo a Mast. Too many knobs for a Distortron.

I love Zvex pedals, but the landscape layout means I can't have them on my board without binning loads of others.

monquixote

Same here. 

It's a bloody stupid layout.

Octahedron

Whaaaaaa?! 

I thought Royal Blood were a 3 piece! Damn. And that's all just bass?! Swear on my life it was guitar. Yeesh well I better get back to getting me hearing checked out then. Only young as well. Fudge. 

I do like Royal Blood. Gotta say they're pretty good. Album just came out here on Friday. Think I need to stick it on the buying list. I've got the Out of the Black EP which I enjoyed!  

ICBM

Must admit that having heard so much about this band, I was quite disappointed in their set at Glastonbury. There's only so much you can do with two instruments, and like all the other two-instrument/fuzz/POG/etc bands they seem to do the same thing over and over. Deap Vally are the same, great for the first couple of songs but then it gets very samey. (But better looking .) Even the White Stripes really ran out of musical ideas quite quickly and were only kept going by the strength of some of the songs… and then called it quits about at the right time.

There was a band in Edinburgh at least three or four years ago who were doing the drums-and-bass-only thing too, so Royal Blood didn't exactly strike me as that original from that point of view either. http://thefireandi.com/band/

Deijavoo

Still.

imalone

I thought Deap Vally were very samey after the first 30s of watching. Happened to turn on their Glastonbury set last year and quickly went from 'that's good, it'll sound great when it kicks off' to 'it's not going to kick off, is it?' Have liked Royal Blood so far, but have only heard a couple of tracks.

telestratjazz

Excellent band,first time I've seen them yesterday on BBC3.