Royal Blood

Two men from Brighton with a bass and a drum kit engineered a sound so large that first-time listeners routinely check the credits for a hidden guitarist who isn't there.

"Out of the Black" opens the case for the defense: Mike Kerr runs his bass through enough distortion and octave trickery to swallow the whole low-and-mid range, so nothing feels missing even with the lineup stripped to bone. Ben Thatcher hits like he's trying to knock the tempo down, and on "Figure It Out" the groove struts rather than stomps, proof this duo has swing and not just volume. The trick could have been a novelty, a one-riff gimmick worn thin by track ten, but "Ten Tonne Skeleton" arrives with as much snarl as the opener. That refusal to run out of hooks is what earned them arena slots most two-piece bands never reach.