Carney’s drums sound giant but appropriate, the boom of the kick drum recorded in a large room and the crunched thwack of the snare propelling Auerbach’s overdriven riff. Opener “Everlasting Light” showcases Auerbach’s embrace of falsetto, a feature that over the course of the record reveals him as a credible soul vocalist, owing to Van Morrison and the host of Motown and Stax singers whose ghosts haunt the record. Brothers is the least stuffy record The Black Keys has put out, and it’s by far their strongest. The duo’s quirky sense of humor shines through not only on the record sleeve, promo artwork, and videos, but also on the record itself. With cover art slyly nodding to Howlin’ Wolf’s The Howlin’ Wolf’s Album, the record sees the band cranking out its most cohesive collection of glam rock, souped-up soul, and electric blues.
The looseness enjoyed by the duo has translated well to Brothers, their sixth record. The band’s activity following the record showed the marks of two guys interested in not doing Black Keys: guitarist/singer/songwriter Dan Auerbach released a stylistically varied solo record and toured with Tex-Mex band Hacienda as his backing band drummer Patrick Carney hooked up with other kit-men and started an indie rock band called Drummer and the two helped produce Damon Dash’s decent-to-pretty-good Blakroc record in 2009, providing beats and blues licks for Raekwon, ODB, Ludacris, Mos Def, and others to rap over. Produced by Danger Mouse and featuring Marc Ribot, the record shook up the formula with some psych leanings and a dose of boogie rock. Though, 2008’s Attack & Release took a couple steps to get weird. While it earned the band a loyal audience, it was at times difficult to tell the songs or records apart. Akron, Ohio’s The Black Keys have dealt with the conundrum admirably, howling a mean kind of blues by way of garage rock, never getting too slick, and, most importantly, writing good songs.īut the stuff wasn’t wholly dynamic.
And you certainly can’t play it too straight, lest you come off like some type of John Mayer, taking time off from your pop career to smear Stevie Ray Vaughan licks for the type of old dudes who still buy CDs. When it comes to playing the blues, naming an album Thickfreakness and releasing a Junior Kimbrough cover record isn’t going to save you from the glaring eye of critics still looking to tear down the Jon Spencers.