Royal Blood have described Dead Company, the fifth album from the Worthing duo, as a record built to give a listener nowhere to rest. Speaking to NME backstage at Reading 2026, singer and bassist Mike Kerr said the brief was simple: "Can we make a record where it never lets off?" He added that he commends anyone who reaches the end of it.
The album is due on November 13 and was previewed by the single Ten Over Ten, which the band shared earlier this year alongside the album title. Kerr said every song was written with the live show in mind, checking each one against how it would feel to play in a room together. That, he said, is the whole reason the band exists.
Drummer Ben Thatcher framed the record against the two that surround it. He said it carries the energy of their first album and the excitement that came with it, but with four albums' worth of writing behind it. The last record was made in a different environment; this one came out of the pair being back in a room, playing, and he wanted that raw and unedited feeling to reach the stage again.
The pair were talking after a mid-afternoon secret set on the Gallery stage, which drew a large crowd. It followed the surprise slot they confirmed for the weekend and came after a two year gap in live work. Kerr called the run of small shows leading up to it a road to Reading, a stretch of dates to shake off the rust, and said the festival was where it felt like they had arrived.
Those underplays are not the soft option, according to Kerr, who said they never feel small and always carry a level of intimidation. The risk of something breaking or going wrong on a small stage is, in his telling, excitement enough for a band that size.
The duo also went back to 2014, their first Reading appearance, when they played a packed set on the NME/Radio 1 Stage. Kerr remembered being scared. The band had been playing rooms holding around 100 people on their first UK tours, sometimes to 50, and walking out to thousands felt like a baptism of fire. Dead Company joins the rest of the autumn's rock releases on the release calendar.
The facts
- Dead Company is the fifth Royal Blood album and is due on November 13.
- It was previewed by the single Ten Over Ten.
- Mike Kerr said the aim was a record that never lets off.
- The band played a secret set on Reading's Gallery stage before the interview.
- It followed two years without live shows for the duo.
- Their first Reading appearance was on the NME/Radio 1 Stage in 2014.
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