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Magic Potion
Released: Sep 12, 2006
Label: N\A

Akron's {$the Black Keys} have jumped labels again with {^Magic Potion}. Beginning on their own {@Alive} label, the band established itself internationally with {^Thickfreakness} and {^Rubber... Continue[+]

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Akron's {$the Black Keys} have jumped labels again with {^Magic Potion}. Beginning on their own {@Alive} label, the band established itself internationally with {^Thickfreakness} and {^Rubber Factory}. They appear now with their {@Nonesuch} debut -- they share a label with everyone from {$Pat Metheny} and {$Sam Phillips} to {$Toumani Diabat�} and {$Stephin Merritt}. Fans needn't worry that {$the Black Keys} being on a label distributed by {@Warner} has done anything to their sound. {^Magic Potion} is gritty, raw, immediate and sludgy. It was recorded at the band's studios in Akron, and the only real difference is that they've become even better at what they do. Here are 11 tunes rooted in {\blues} and riff-heavy {\rock}, with only guitar and drums ripping through them like a loose power cable in a thunderstorm. Check out the wildly rockist riff that is at the heart of the album's opener {&"Just Got to Be,"} or the wily shambolic {\blues} in {&"Your Touch."} If anything, {^Magic Potion} reminds the listener of the late great {$Red Devils} {^King King} except they have a deeper {\country}, south-of-the-Mason-Dixon-line feel to them, even on a ballad such as {&"You're the One,"} which feels like it's barely being held together by {$Dan Auerbach}'s voice, which unifies the guitar and {$Patrick Carney}'s drums. {&"Strange Desire"} is an electric-acid-{\blues} moan disguised as a ballad, whereas {&"Just a Little Heat"} inverts the riff from {$Led Zeppelin}'s {&"Little Loving Maid "} to offer a wide-open howl of distorted guitar and a slippery snare and cymbals crash. For those who feel that the {\blues} have nothing to offer in the 21st century -- especially {\electric blues}, which has spawned countless cookie-cutter, slick deceptions disguised as the real thing --  {^Magic Potion} should satisfy deeply. Here is a future {\blues} that comes right from the groin of history, reinterpreted through {\garage rock}, alcohol, and rage: just check out {&"Modern Times."} In the slow drawling burn, one can hear {$Junior Kimbrough}'s ghost possessing {$Auerbach}. {&"Elevator"} closes the set on a feedback-drenched, minimal {\Delta blues} that has more to do with the cagey antics of {$Charley Patton} and {$Lightnin' Hopkins} -- and {$R.L. Burnside}, too -- than with either {$the White Stripes} or {$Ronnie Earl}. This is vulgar music, completely unsentimental or nostalgic but with a deep, wild, and tenacious heart; it's spooky, un-caged, and frighteningly descriptive of our time and place. It's been a long time since the majors put out a record this savage. This is the door to the {\blues} in 2006; hold on to your hips because they will begin to twitch. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

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Your Touch
Released: Sep 4, 2006
Label: N\A

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Chulahoma
Released: May 2, 2006
Label: N\A

{^Chulahoma} is a stopgap EP from {$the Black Keys}, a collection of six covers of songs by cult bluesman {$Junior Kimbrough}, whose {&"Do the Rump"} they covered on their 2002 debut, {^Big Come... Continue[+]

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{^Chulahoma} is a stopgap EP from {$the Black Keys}, a collection of six covers of songs by cult bluesman {$Junior Kimbrough}, whose {&"Do the Rump"} they covered on their 2002 debut, {^Big Come Up}. Considering that this is the first time the {\blues-rock} guitar-n-drums duo has devoted an album to nothing but straight-ahead {\blues} songs, it wound seem logical that {^Chulahoma} would be the bluesiest recording in their catalog, but {$the Black Keys} aren't that simple. The six songs on this 28-minute EP are hardly replications of {$Kimbrough}'s gritty originals, nor do they have the dirty, punch-to-the-gut feel of any of the duo's three proper albums. Instead, this is the weirdest set of music the band has done to date, a trippy, murky excursion into territory that floats somewhere between the primal urgency of the duo's best work and the dark, moody psychedelia of late-'60s {\blues-rock}. Take {&"Have Mercy on Me"} -- its winding, narcotic {\blues} groove settles into a bed of droning organ and bongos, but the interplay between guitarist/vocalist {$Dan Auerbach} and drummer {$Patrick Carney} prevents it from sounding as affected as psychedelia, while infusing it with a real sense of danger. That unsettling undercurrent flows throughout this brief EP, and it makes {^Chulahoma} an album that's ideal for pitch-black nights, where the music can worm its way into your imagination and then run wild. That alone would make it a unique, noteworthy detour for {$the Black Keys}, but when this is compared to {$Kimbrough}'s original recordings, it becomes an instructive listen since a side-by-side listen reveals how {$Auerbach} drew inspiration from {$Kimbrough}'s stripped-down, idiosyncratic grooves and took it into some place entirely different. And while that might mean that {^Chulahoma} doesn't necessarily sound like a kissing cousin to {$Kimbrough}'s originals, it does make it a greater, richer tribute than most cover albums, and it certainly proves that {$Auerbach}'s testimonial in the liner notes about how {$Junior Kimbrough} changed his life is no lie. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

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Live
Released: Oct 4, 2005
Label: N\A

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Rubber Factory
Released: Sep 7, 2004
Label: N\A

It's easy to think of {$the Black Keys} as the flip side of {$the White Stripes}. They both hail from the Midwest, they both work a similar garage {\blues} ground and both have color-coded names.... Continue[+]

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It's easy to think of {$the Black Keys} as the flip side of {$the White Stripes}. They both hail from the Midwest, they both work a similar garage {\blues} ground and both have color-coded names. If they're not quite kissing cousins, they're certainly kindred spirits, and they're following surprisingly similar career arcs, as {$the Keys}' third album, {^Rubber Factory}, is neatly analogous to {$the Stripes}' third album breakthrough, {^White Blood Cells}. {^Rubber Factory} finds the duo expanding, stretching, and improving, coming into its own as a distinctive, original, thoroughly great {\rock & roll} band. With 2003's {^Thickfreakness}, guitarist/vocalist {$Dan Auerbach} and drummer/producer {$Patrick Carney} delivered on the promise of a raw, exciting debut by sharpening their sound and strengthening the songwriting, thereby upping the ante for their next record, and {^Rubber Factory} doesn't disappoint. Instead, it surprises in a number of delightful ways, redefining the duo without losing the essence of the band. For instance, the production has more shades than either {^The Big Come Up} or {^Thickfreakness} -- witness the creepy late-night vibe of the opening {&"When the Lights Go Out"} or how the spare, heartbroken, and slide guitar-laden {&"The Lengths"} sounds like it's been rusted over -- but it's also harder, nastier, and uglier than those albums, piled with truly brutal, gut-level guitar. Yet through these sheets of noise, vulnerability pokes through, not just on {&"The Lengths,"} but in a lazy, loping, terrific version of {$the Kinks}' {&"Act Nice and Gentle."} And, like their cover of {$the Beatles}' {&"She Said, She Said"} on their debut, {&"Act Nice and Gentle"} illustrates that even if {$the Black Keys} have more legit {\blues} credentials than any of their peers, they're nevertheless an {\indie rock} band raised with not just a knowledge of classic {\rock}, but with excellent taste and, most importantly, an instinct for what makes great {\rock & roll}. They know that sound matters, not just <I>how</I> a band plays but how a band is recorded, and that {\blues} sounds better when it's unvarnished, which is why each of their records feels more like a real {\blues} album than anything cut since the '60s. But they're not revivalists, either. They've absorbed the language of classic {\rock} and the sensibility of {\indie rock} -- they're turning familiar sounds into something nervy and fresh, music that builds on the past yet lives fearlessly in the moment. On a sheer gut level, they're intoxicating and that alone would be enough to make {^Rubber Factory} a strong listen, but what makes it transcendent is that {$Auerbach} has developed into such a fine songwriter. His songs have enough melodic and lyrical twists to make it seem like he's breaking rules, but his trick is that he's doing this within traditional {\blues-rock} structures. He's not just reinvigorating a familiar form, he's doing it without a lick of pretension; it never seems as if the songs were written, but that they've always existed and have just been discovered, which is true of any great {\blues} song. {$Carney} gives these songs the production they deserve -- some tunes are dense and heavy with guitars, others are spacious and haunting -- and the result is the most exciting and best {\rock & roll} record of 2004. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

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Have Love Will Travel - UK CD
Released: May 25, 2004
Label: N\A

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The Moan
Released: Jan 20, 2004
Label: N\A

Like most such things, this four-track CD single is mostly of use to collectors and die-hard fans, as the material is not up to the standard of {$the Black Keys}' albums. The title track is one of... Continue[+]

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Thickfreakness
Released: Apr 8, 2003
Label: N\A

While the vast majority of {\post-punk} bands who have an obvious taste for the {\blues} seem to enjoy taking the style apart and messing around with the bits and pieces, {$the Black Keys} are the... Continue[+]

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The Big Come Up
Released: May 14, 2002
Label: N\A

As minimal two-man {\blues-rock} bands go, this has to be near the top of the heap. The problem with minimal two-man {\blues-rock} outfits (and there have been more of them than you think) is that... Continue[+]

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As minimal two-man {\blues-rock} bands go, this has to be near the top of the heap. The problem with minimal two-man {\blues-rock} outfits (and there have been more of them than you think) is that they're, well, usually too minimal, with thin {\garage} sound and a shortage of variety. {$The Black Keys}' sound, impressively, is not too thin (though it is {\garage-ish}), and there's enough deft incorporation of {\funk}, {\soul}, and {\hard rock} into the harsh {\juke joint-ish} core to avoid monotony. Most importantly, {$Dan Auerbach} has a genuinely fine, powerful {\blues} voice, sometimes approximating a white, slightly smoother {$Howlin' Wolf} (particularly on the opener, {&"Busted"}). {$Auerbach}'s a good guitarist, too, conjuring suitably harsh and busy (and sometimes heavily reverbed) riffs out of what sounds like a cheap but effectively harsh amp. {$Patrick Carney}'s drums might be the cruder component of this two-man band, but they keep the sound earthy without sounding sloppily {\punkish} for the hell of it, as too many such groups searching for the {\blues}-{\punk} fusion do. The very occasional insertion of {\hip-hop} snippets seems neither here nor there, and the cover of {$the Beatles}' {&"She Said, She Said"} seems like an odd choice. But overall it's quite cool raunchy {\electric blues} with more vigor and imagination than similarly raw, elderly Southern {\juke joint} artists who came into vogue starting in the 1990s. And it's <i>way</i> fresher than the standard {\bar band} {\blues-rockers} with slicker execution and more reverence for {\blues} clich�s. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide

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Attack & Release
Released: Apr 1, 2008
Label: Nonesuch

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The Black Keys

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