Howl and Growl with The Black Keys
4 Out Of 5 Stars
The Black Keys are the latest incarnation of garage-band boys to discover the gritty blues. "Brothers" is their best to date, having distilled their influences down to basics, at the same time not jettisoning the hipster production stlye of Danger Mouse and his ilk. The atmosphereic wooshes that swirl underneath the best songs here (especailly "Too Afraid To Love You") eliminate mone of the primal yearning from the songs, and pull them into a more modern sound. Even the update of Jerry Butler's "Never Gonna Give You Up" maintains a reverence for the original; other than being recorded in this century, there's not much difference between the way the two songs feel.
Which is one of the many reasons I enjoy "Brothers." The big echoing drums, the fuzzy guitars, the less than perfect singing (there's no auto-tune on this album) make it more of a feel album than a technical one. When something chugs like "Sinister Kid" or reaches to the falsetto heavens like "Everlasting Light," you can tell that Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach are trying more to make the album sound right more than having one more go at that perfect take. Or that they feel no shame in taking a Gary Glitter drum stomp and attatching it to "Howlin' For You." "Brothers" takes to the same mold that Jack White seems to have gone for with Dead Weather in that anything worth using is good in service to the song.
Fans of slicked up blues or even the uber-purists will likely not like this, as the music is raw and blunt, without much thought for replicating tradition in a narrow sense. "Brothers" rumbles along its own stream, engrossing everything in the water like so much swamp moss.
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