Royal Blood

Two people, no guitar, and a wall of sound that swears there’s a fourth member hiding offstage. That’s the trick at the centre of Royal Blood. Mike Kerr plays bass and sings; Ben Thatcher plays drums. There is no guitarist, and there never has been. What you hear instead is Kerr’s bass split across a rack of amps and effects, one path carrying the low end, another pitched up an octave to play the riff like a lead guitar. He found that octave by accident. His own words: “I fluked out really.” The fluke became the whole sound.

They came up around Worthing, on the south coast of England, and the band dates from 2011. The self-titled debut in 2014 was the fastest-selling British rock debut in three years, and an early Brit Award followed. Four albums in, with How Did We Get So Dark? and Typhoons both hitting No. 1 in the UK, the sound has widened toward groove and a kind of dancefloor menace. Still no guitar. Start with Figure It Out and listen for the part that shouldn’t be possible.