The Black Keys
Brothers
(Nonesuch)
Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney know nasty. They know it so well, in fact, they’ve churned out yet another down and dirty blues record that drips such an intoxicating swampy goodness, it would have been illegal during prohibition. People would have died smuggling Brothers across state lines to black market buyers and those deaths would not have been for naught. This record needs to be heard.
Plenty of attention has been paid to Auerbach and Carney’s brief departures from the Keys’ project, both of their mainstays, but the real issue is whatthisrecordmeansrightnow. The sixth full length from the indefatigable Akron duo speaks as much to modern blues and o.g. Southern blues as it does to '70s classic rock and blacksploitation era rhythm and blues. Where some artists get lost in tackling such a behemoth genre-borrowing task, The Black Keys nail it with one utterly distinguishable sound.
And what a crazy good sound it is. Get low. Grind your neighbor. Drink your whiskey straight. But don’t walk away for a second. Every moment of Brothers delivers the truest, most authentic sludge blues you’re bound to here for eons.
With only a slight retraction from the above rave, the Danger Mouse produced “Tighten Up” cutes it up a bit with a sing-song-y whistle intro that throws off the remainder of the pure blues greatness. The rest of the track falls in line with the album and offers a psychedelic fuzzy hook that lights up like fireflies in the Delta.
It’s simply not fair to pick favorites from the 16 gems on Brothers but the opener, “Everlasting Light,” “Next Girl,” “I’m Not The One,” and “Never Gonna Give You Up” warrant special attention.
“Everlasting Light” borrows from the Spoon dance-inspired beat (think “I Turn My Camera On” from Gimme Fiction) and gets the record off on the right foot, though most of the tracks play a little slower. On the catchy, “Next Girl” The Keys go sinister and sleek on this ex animo serenade to a witchy-wayward-woman. This is the stuff of the midnight-iest swamp-iest swamp under the fullest of moons. Auerbach’s vocals are always great but on “I’m Not The One” he digs deep and comes up with a visceral and pained moan that has the clarity of some diamond Kathleen Turner would be on the hunt for in Cartagena. (The same can be said for the ultra-noir “These Days.”) “Never Gonna Give You Up,” originally performed by Isaac Hayes on 1980s Black Moses, takes The Keys to a rich R&B place full of finger wagging and tears and lyin’ and cryin’. Not for a second will you doubt The Black Keys can successfully stray from the ruff and tumble Rubber Factory on this airy confession.
Brothers is no joke. Auerbach and Carney have returned with a vengeance.
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