Here Is The News: 2019 Edition, part 2

I hope you enjoyed part one of the news update for this year.
Better buckle up for part two!

VAN HALEN CONTINUE TO SLOWLY VANISH FROM EXISTENCE

Hard Rock icons Van Halen are beginning to fade away from reality, starting with guitarist Eddie Van Halen. Scientists aren't certain why but they have calculated that if something isn't done soon, all traces of Van Halen will have completely vanished without a trace within the next four years.

The strange phenomenon is believed to have begun many years ago but it only became apparent when Eddie Van Halen was asked to take a photograph of a Tool fan at one of their concerts. It was strange enough when the fan didn't recognise one of the greatest living guitarists of all time but things became truly bizarre after a second photo was taken of Eddie at the show. Whilst the photo came out perfectly normal on the night, weeks later the image of Eddie had begun to fade until he was completely invisible.

The rest of the band were unavailable for comment, presumably due to fading away shortly after Eddie. This was confirmed after a television appearance by Pop star and Baskin Robbins Flavour Of The Month, Billie Eilish, on Jimmy Kimmel's chat show. When asked about her opinion on the 80s Hard Rockers, Billie had no recollection of the band's existence at all. Naturally, audience members were shocked as her knowledge gap clearly wasn't due to her age and lack of interest in the genre of music; it must've been something more sinister.

Whilst pictures and evidence of Sammy Hagar's stint with the band seem unaffected by the temporal anomaly, all evidence of the band's golden years with David Lee Roth are slowly being erased. Fans believe David Lee Roth was aware of this as one of the last things he publicly said before disappearing was that he believed Van Halen were "finished". After some digging, Internet conspiracy theorists believe the answer lies in how guitarist Eddie Van Halen frequently used to put a guitar pick made of plutonium in his mouth during gigs, although all evidence of this has since been erased from the timeline.

Quantum physicist Dr. Emmett Brown stated "This wouldn't be the first time someone has meddled with the timeline and caused disastrous results. With the band vanishing from our reality, there's no telling what the outcome might be; future bands inspired by Van Halen could vanish, films using the song "Jump" could be forced to use some other kind of inspiring 80s anthem, it could be catastrophic. This is pretty heavy indeed".

NITA STRAUSS IS A WOMAN

Nita Strauss, solo artist and guitarist for Alice Cooper, is a woman who can actually play guitar. This revelation has come as a surprise to many fans of Rock and Metal who spent their entire lives believing women were incapable of producing anything other than babies, let alone top quality riffs and face melting solos. However, Nita Strauss has led the charge in reminding people that woman have fingers.

In a recent television interview promoting her second solo album and brand new signature guitar, Nita (pictured left) commented once again on how happy she is to be doing something for women all over the world. "It's so great to be inspiring women to play guitar and write Rock music. Women like me can do anything we put our minds to and I think it's important that people look at me and see that you don't have to be a man to play guitar; you can also be a blond, attractive woman too". Nita echoed her sentiments on several radio appearances that followed where she repeatedly stated that she's "not just a pretty face" but also someone "who grew up with Rock music from an early age" before naming every single chord and note she can play on the guitar.

Nita has also launched her own YouTube channel called Nita Talks where she posts weekly videos about the struggles of being the only woman in Rock/Metal who can play guitar and talk about how tough it is being the only woman in Rock/Metal. Her videos have received praise from band members, peers and Rock/Metal fans all over the world, calling them "eye-opening" and "much needed in this time of gender stereotype uncertainty".

Aside from being the only woman in all of recorded history to play guitar for a Rock band, Nita Strauss has also demonstrated that it's possible to be a female musician and have other interests too. Nita has championed campaigns related to health & fitness as well as encouraging young generations of men (and women!) to pick up musical instruments. "It's important to show people how talented you are" she stated after being asked about her opinion on climate change.

Nita Strauss is currently on tour with Alice Cooper and will be widely promoting her solo albums at intimate venues across America. She's also expected to be giving a talk about how great it is to hear women following her lead and getting into recording Rock/Metal music in an upcoming public appearance (the appearance is a corporate awards show for cutlery manufacturers but it's expected that she'll give the talk regardless).

ROYAL BLOOD CRUISE DOESN'T GO AS PLANNED

Once beloved Rock band Royal Blood have suffered another catastrophic blow to their popularity after a cruise trip planned for themselves and fans went disastrously wrong. Much like many other Rock and for some reason Metal bands at the moment, Royal Blood decided to invite their most wealthy fans to party with them on a cruise ship for a week. However, nobody could have foreseen what happened next.

After partnering with Royal Caribbean Cruises, Royal Blood sold tickets for the Royal Blood Royal Cruise at the end of last year, thinking it would show the world that they weren't just lucky when they released their debut album several years ago. The cruise (affectionately known as the band's Royal Baby) was meant to be an opportunity for both the band and fans to have a great time with sun, sea and simplistic bass melodies made to sound like heavier Rock songs. Things were going well for the first couple of days but problems began after the ship's crew realised they didn't have enough fuel to last the entire journey.

Not long after setting off, Royal Blood were dead in the water. Since most of the fans and record producers aboard the cruise had eaten most of the free shrimp and drunk most of the alcohol the band supplied, passengers had to reuse a lot of old food and drink to keep themselves from becoming dehydrated. Unfortunately, there's only so long you can provide the same material before fans demand something new and exciting to prevent them from losing interest or, in this case, dying.

After trying to recreate the fuel that initially powered the ship from expensive clothing from the record producers and a bunch of cash lying about, it became clear that Royal Blood (pictured right) would have to do more to get the ship moving again, hence the band's plea online for suggestions to give the ship some life again. After checking their Royal Mail, Royal Blood found several helpful suggestions from their fans at home, collectively known as the Royal Family. One of which was to just do the same thing they did when getting fuel in the first place, which was just enough to get them moving again.

After a gruelling three weeks, the Royal Blood Royal Cruise arrived back home with half as many passengers and a smell that would take months of intense cleaning to get the ship back to normal again. When asked about whether the band would attempt anything like this again, Royal Blood's spokesperson stated "The future is uncertain for Royal Blood but one thing we do know is that this cruise was an absolute Royal Fuckup".

DETECTIVE STUMPED BY STRING OF RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS MYSTERIES

A Private Eye tasked with investigating all the latest decisions made by popular Rock bands has had to throw in the towel after revealing that he's absolutely stumped by the recent actions of Alternative Funk rockers Red Hot Chili Peppers. Detective Ryan Shmuckers was hired by a Kickstarter campaign to identify what the band were playing at but has sadly revealed that he's made no progress in the two years since he was hired.

Detective Shmuckers was first hired in 2017 to investigate why a Rock band from America would choose to hire a Pop producer (Danger Mouse, pictured left) to help create their 11th studio album. Ryan posted on his work Tumblr account that after looking into how the band's last album before The Getaway was met with mixed to negative responses, he just couldn't figure out why a Rock band would want someone known for producing commercially successful Pop albums to work with them over 30 years after they first started making Rock music. He described the case as "quite possibly unsolvable by even the greatest detectives of our time".

Shmuckers was also asked to investigate similar cases as to why bands with integrity like Foo Fighters and Queens Of The Stone Age would ask well known Pop producers to make their albums. "It's almost as if there's something a Pop music producer can bring to the table when it comes to releasing records that a typical Rock producer might not be able to provide as much. Some kind of significant factor when it comes to making music nowadays...but I can't for the life of me figure out what".

Much like the average person after listening to "Uptown Funk", the plot became even thicker after it was recently announced that guitarist John Frusciante was returning to the band. Detective Shmuckers looked into why the guitarist who previously left the band would want to return after the success of The Getaway two years ago. "It seems as though the same missing ingredient that explains why these modern Rock bands are getting Pop producers holds the key behind John's return. If only I or anyone else could figure out what that is".

Detective Shmuckers is going to keep looking into this for a few more months before deciding whether he should hand over the case to someone more talented. However, if Ryan Shmuckers can't find the connection between bands with dwindling popularity and the same bands hiring Pop producers who are known for making music that gets a lot of radio play, he just might bust this thing wide open.

TOP "TOP 10 ALBUMS OF THE 2010S" LISTS REVEALED

Now that we've reached the end of the 2010s, it's time for the most important piece of cultural preservation since the surge in time capsules at the start of the new millennium: Top 10 Albums Of The 2010s lists. Naturally, everyone has an opinion on which albums were better than others and thanks to the convenience of digital distribution, everyone has to read them whether they like it or not.

The list contains all the standard music websites from the pretentious choices of Pitchfork to the irrelevant opinions of Rolling Stone but there are still a few surprises in there, such as the contrarian ramblings of some Indie music blogs and totally unbiased & well thought out views of Metal forums. Whilst the list doesn't contain any numeric ranking of superiority, presumably to avoid offending people by suggesting the sound waves they get emotional pleasure out of aren't as good as others, it would appear that the lists at the start and end are regarded as the best due to the detail given to their descriptions.

Albums selected in each of these lists range from contemporary Pop to edgy contemporary Pop with some Hip Hop scattered about to show readers how forward thinking and open to different musical genres the list's authors are. Naturally Kanye West and David Bowie are in the list because smart people listen to those albums and it's important for readers to know how smart the writers are but that's not all. There's also Taylor Swift, Adele and Lana Del Rey because the best thing about music is everyone has to agree on what's considered good; in this case, it's depressing piano-driven dirge from physically attractive yet inexplicably romantically unhappy women.

Once again, Rock and Metal music is absent from the majority of lists apart from a few joyless experiences that happen to feature guitar such as whatever Arcade Fire shat out near the start of the decade. However, a few specialist websites decided to focus on Top Rock Albums when compiling their lists. Not only that but they decided to cast the net so wide with their selection that utter shite released throughout the 2010s like Rock Or Bust - AC/DC and ...Like Clockwork - Queens Of The Stone Age made the cut over records that weren't tired or full of themselves.

Regardless of what some trendy tosspot or opinionated blogger thinks, the important thing is that listeners continue to support the things they get joy from and express negative thoughts about overrated material in a way that doesn't sound like them getting mad for the sake of it. To anyone out there thinking of making their own lists, I wish you good luck and a gentle reminder that just because you really liked something you heard in the last couple of years, that doesn't mean it's as good as something released in 2012...unless it's Prequelle - Ghost.


That's all for this blog for the year and indeed decade! I'll be back in January with some posts about stuff from 2019 and maybe a couple of random bits & bobs too.
Until then, have a Happy New Year!

How Did We Get So Dark? - Royal Blood

PREVIOUSLY ON RIFFSANDRAFFS.BLOGSPOT.COM

"A promising start from a band clearly destined for follow-up material and a taste of their talents as Rock musicians".

"I begrudgingly accept that this band have wings".

"At the risk of possibly contradicting myself somewhere, I believe music should be judged on the music and not the circumstances which brought it to my ears".

- IaSg14, Royal Blood - Royal Blood review

After listening to the debut, I was excited to hear the band's next effort. Generally, when a band explodes onto the Rock scene with a good debut, the follow up is almost certainly better due to the band finding their feet and getting a bit more confident in the studio. However, there are rare occasions where the debut is so good that the follow up can't possibly meet the same standard or the hype surrounding the debut has led to overconfidence and arrogance in either the studio executives overseeing the album or the band themselves, leading to a decline in quality due to the poor decisions consequently being made.
Royal Blood's follow up to their eponymous debut probably wouldn't have made quite the same impact if it was released as the first album instead but that's not to say it's a bad album. It's got some decent songs and if you liked the original, there's plenty for you to get stuck into. However, it doesn't start off with the strongest step. "How Did We Become So Dark?" is a pretty poor album and title track. There's nothing particularly memorable about it compared to some of their other tunes and whilst it doesn't have to rock my socks off, a good album opener for a band's second album should at least announce their return in some impressive way or form.
At least the band knew which songs on the album made the best singles. "Lights Out" kicks things off with a great intro and crunchy riff-based Rock that fans of Royal Blood's debut should enjoy. "Where Are You Now?" also showcases some of the subtle improvements the band have made to their own sound, tightening up some of the technical drumming and basswork. I've said in the past that bands don't need to innovate with every album (especially if they've only released about three or four) but it's still good to hear the band getting better at their craft and that deserves some respect.

Some tracks go a step further with the bass riffs and even introduce new tones/instruments ("Hook, Line & Sinker", "Hole In Your Heart") although at its core, this album is basically just Royal Blood (album) but with a different cover. The majority of songs sound like your basic modern Hard Rock tracks with elements still borrowed from Queens Of The Stone Age and Rival Sons. Sadly, unlike the first album, How Did We Become So Dark? fails to capture the best elements of those bands and end up sounding like terrible tributes or covers ("She's Creeping", "Look Like You Know").
One strength the album boasts is containing a great variety of tracks to say it's still just Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher pumping out the Rock. It might sound like typical modern Hard Rock but the different structures, rhythms, tempos and everything in between make this something a bit more than your standard cash-in from 80s groups still clinging onto the Rock charts like a lizard on a breezy cliff. Unfortunately, for fans of Hard Rock with a bit more to it than percussion and a few fuzzy riffs, there's still nothing to entice new fans.
Royal Blood's music is still the same as it was when they first became the next big thing so if you want falsetto vocal screeching, double bass drum solos or even just a guitar, you're going to have to wait another couple of albums. Alternatively, you could find another band (as I don't see any of those things happening as long as Royal Blood are still mainstream artists) but if you were hoping for something more after their debut, you're going to be disappointed after you finish with album closer "Sleep", and not just because that song is boring as fuck.

How Did We Become So Dark? is good but not for Rock fans still unconvinced by Royal Blood's material or those hopin the band would release a full-on masterpiece after a strong debut. It's an OK follow-up with some small improvements here & there but nothing that reaches out through the headphones and throttles your brain's pleasure centres until you're left slumped in drooling bliss, although I can forgive that as long as the promise is still there.
Royal Blood are still babies on the Rock scene so it's a little unfair to judge them on their ability to release smashing album after smashing album (unless you want another Oasis on your hands). However, I find myself struggling to recall any of the songs on this album a day after listening to them repeatedly for this review so by all means, judge them on their current inability to write more than one album's worth of great music. I rate this album 5/10 for the effort but if it had just one song that stuck in my mind in a positive way, it could've made a 6.

Royal Blood - Royal Blood

If you've been watching TV, listening to the radio or generally been aware of noise around you for the last year, you will have heard a song by this band. No "may"'s or "possibly"'s, it's a certainty. Their music has been fucking everywhere since they released it and based on the tracks that received the most attention, I admit that initially I wasn't looking forward to this.

The pretentious album cover didn't help either but about 8 and a half months after it hit the shelves, I decided to give it a crack myself. After all, I'd heard half of the album through media use already. So what can I say about Royal Blood that you don't already know? Well, it might come as a surprise that in a similar but greatly superior vein to the White Stripes, the band consists of a drummer and a vocalist who plays lead instrument.
However, rather than a traditional electric guitar, Mike Kerr wields a wellied-up bass instead. With this combination of maximum fuzz and pounding rhythm, Royal Blood gained instant appeal from music journalists, modern Rock fans and practically everyone online...except me. I refused to acknowledge their talent after hearing two of the lead singles from the album.
"Come On Over" has the kind of basic riff a teenager would write after picking up their new guitar for the first time and "Figure It Out" contained more of the same with a shitawful solo for good measure. My immediate reaction was that these two were lucky more than anything and had accidentally written a pair of catchy but rather mediocre Rock songs. Now that I've listened to the entire album, I've come to realise that my dismissal of their music was a bit hasty. Not entirely inaccurate but evidently based on little more than a bad first impression.

Album opener "Out Of The Black" starts of explosively and was probably inspired by the bit everyone likes from "New Born" - Muse. However, as well as noisily introducing themselves onto the Rock scene, this track alone puts them ahead of about 90% of other modern Rock bands who spend sections of their live gigs sat on stools, gloomily moaning to a sea of twentysomethings holding iPads.
Some would contest that their sound is new and unusual compared to household Rock. Unusual, maybe. New, not by a long shot. It's quite easy to compare Mike Kerr's guitar and vocal talents to that of Josh Homme's and Jack White's respectively, taking the best elements from both with some fantastic drumming from Ben Thatcher (a man who in my eyes is completely responsible for this album being enjoyable). As well as this, there are tracks such as "You Can Be So Cruel", "Loose Change" and "Careless" that'll be familiar to fans of modern acts such as Wolfmother, Rival Sons and Them Crooked Vultures too.
You could argue that these guys deserve the praise they're getting if they can replicate the sound of those bands with just two chaps and no overdubbing or studio magic but I would counter that this band have merely adapted the sound of snippets, not the overall quality of the song(s). Plus, at the risk of possibly contradicting myself somewhere, I believe music should be judged on the music and not the circumstances which brought it to my ears. If anything, it clouds judgement and adds a permanent obstacle for you to avoid when trying to enjoy art.

As far as debut albums go though, this is pretty impressive. A promising start from a band clearly destined for follow-up material and a taste of their talents as Rock musicians. Unlike most of the bands I've discussed on this blog who are reviving Hard Rock riffs and screeches from several decades ago, Royal Blood have produced a consistent album that won't disappoint fans of the modern genre, as long as they aren't after technical soloing or 8-minute progressive masterpieces.
If you enjoy the riffs, you'll find that the songs have instant repeat value as most of them only last 3 minutes or so but due to their basic nature, it's unlikely you'll still be listening to the album months later unless you've padded each listen with completely different material...or you really like the riffs. Anyway, I begrudgingly accept that this band have wings and give the album a 7/10. I haven't rated it higher because I'm trying to rate it purely on the music, not the hype.
If you ignore the fact that it's just two guys nailing each studio recording in a single take, it's a decent effort. Not amazing but simultaneously heavy and catchy, which is always welcome in a jungle of Folk Twats masquerading as Rock, self-proclaimed rap geniuses with a positive correlation between their ever inflating egos and idiot fans, pop starlettes confusing soulful vocals for shouting in a futile attempt to change skin colour and interchangeable hair-gelled fifteen year olds singing about how hard it is to fancy a classmate whilst revising for GCSEs.