9 best black keys

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Reviewing The Black Keys' 2010 Top Ten breakthrough album Brothers, Rolling Stone called the duo "a two-man combo with a big-band mind." That description seems downright prophetic now. With the hard-rocking El Camino, The Black Keys' fourth Nonesuch release, guitarist-singer Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney conjure up an exhilarating, stadium-sized sound in collaboration with producer and friend Danger Mouse. El Camino boasts a no-nonsense brilliance: The pace is fast, the mood is upbeat, the choruses unfailingly addictive — made for shouting along, preferably in a large, sweaty crowd.

A band already at the top of its game has gotten even better. And The Black Keys have done pretty damn well so far this year, with three 2011 Grammy awards for Brothers under their belt, an MTV Video Music Award for "Tighten Up," more than 850,000 copies of Brothers sold in the U.S., and upwards of a million units worldwide, plus innumerable licensing placements in film, TV, and commercials. El Camino features one stand-out track after another, such as first single "Lonely Boy," "Gold on the Ceiling," and the surprising, acoustic-guitar-driven, tempo-shifting "Little Black Submarines."

"This record is more straight ahead rock and roll — raw, driving, and back to basics," says Auerbach. As Carney has put it, The Black Keys "respect the past while being in the present," and that formula has made them sound like nothing less than the future of rock and roll. While the largely self-produced Brothers, recorded at the famed Muscle Shoals Studio in Alabama, had a more soul and blues-oriented sound, El Camino often recalls the blitzkrieg-paced British-style rock of the 1960s and 70s, post-Beatles and pre-punk: artists like T-Rex, The Sweet, and Gary Glitter, along with the heavier swing of such bands as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

The references are there, but the sound is very much contemporary and utterly their own, equally informed by The Black Keys' passion for hip hop and R&B and bolstered by the atmospheric production approach of Danger Mouse (a.k.a. Brian Burton), who was behind the boards for 2008's Attack & Release and collaborated with them on the funky "Tighten Up" for Brothers. As Auerbach notes, "Brian understands all the different kinds of music we're into. He's got really great ideas about melody and song structure. For him it's all about the song." Also rejoining them is consistently innovative mixing engineer Tchad Blake, who Auerbach calls "a genius with audio, a complete wizard."

El Camino arrives just in time to serve as the ideal holiday gift for The Black Keys' rapidly growing fan base. It came together quickly in an unfettered burst of creativity by the hard-charging pair. They recorded these 11 tracks between tour dates for Brothers at Auerbach's new Easy Eye Studio in Nashville, where he and Carney have now relocated after years of working in their native Akron, Ohio. The duo plans to embark on a six week European Tour at the start of the New Year, with U.S. dates to follow shortly thereafter-including several arenas.

In a time of global austerity, The Black Keys work simply and efficiently, with a minimum of tools and a wealth of ideas, to produce the richest, fattest, coolest music around. Upon the release of Brothers last year, Britain's Uncut magazine called them "one of the best rock'n'roll bands on the planet," and El Camino confirms that.

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The maturation of the Black Keys as record makers and performers has been both subtle and startling. With their 2008 Nonesuch release 'Attack & Release' - the fifth album of their eight-year career which doubled the sales of their previous album and Nonesuch debut 'Magic Potion' - guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney illustrated the durability of their few-frills sound, a mysterious and heavy brew of seventies-vintage rock, classic R&B and timeless, downhearted blues. Producer and pal Danger Mouse, their first outside collaborator, didn't try to reinvent their sound but further isolated its essence with the help of a few carefully chosen guest players and some retro-modern electronic gear. It didn't need to get slicker to get better, or, as the Boston Globe put it, ''Attack & Release' proves that cleaning up the boys still won't stop them from tracking mud all over the house.' Danger Mouse returned to co-produce 'Tighten Up' on 'Brothers,' but for the most part, the duo was on its own, spending ten days at the legendary Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama and coming up with the an even more intensely focused, deeply soulful set that includes a cover of Jerry Butler's 'Never Gonna Give You Up.' The performances are inventive and impassioned: Auerbach extends his vocal range to falsetto on the lead-off track 'Everlasting Light' and 'The Only One'; 'Howlin' For You' opens with a Gary Glitter-style drum riff and the chorus practically invites singing along. The tunes offer a surprising amount of lyrical candor and more than a little dark humor; the grooves alternate between ballsy swagger and bluesy rumination. The album reflects where Auerbach and Carney have been lately, most recently collaborating with a who's who of New York City MC's, including RZA, Q Tip, Mos Def and Raekwon on the 2009 BlakRoc super-session organized by hip-hop impresario and Black Keys fan Damon Dash. They've also pursued projects on their own, Auerbach with his solo 'Keep It Hid' album and tour, Carney with his band Drummer and its debut disc, 'Feels Good Together.' Their maturation didn't happen just in the studio, though. Carney admits, 'Dan and I grew up a lot as individuals and musicians prior to making this album. Our relationship was tested in many ways but at the end of the day, we're brothers, and I think these songs reflect that.' 'Brothers' was primarily cut in Muscle Shoals, a setting that turned out to have more in common with the Akron, Ohio factories where the Black Keys used to record. The place was desolate, the town depressed, so once again the duo slipped into a world all its own. They did additional recording at Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound System in Akron and The Bunker in Brooklyn. The album was mixed by engineer Tchad Blake, a veteran of sessions with Los Lobos, Pearl Jam and Peter Gabriel. Says Carney, 'The way he approaches mixing is the same way we approach making music. Respecting the past while being in the present.'

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The Black Keys 2014 album, Turn Blue, released on Nonesuch Records, was produced by Danger Mouse, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, and features 11 tracks including the first single, "Fever. "



Turn Blue was recorded at Sunset Sound in Hollywood during the summer of 2013 with additional recording done at the Key Club in Benton Harbor, MI and Auerbach s Easy Eye Sound in Nashville in early 2014. Of the new album, the band says Turn Blue could refer to:



A: Suffocation

B: Sadness

C: Numbness from extreme cold

D: A Cleveland late night TV host from the 1960s named Ghoulardi

E: All of the above



Moreover, Carney comments, "We are always trying to push ourselves when we make a record not repeat our previous work but not abandon it either. On this record, we let the songs breathe and explored moods, textures and sounds. We re excited for the world to hear Turn Blue."

This is the eighth full-length album from the duo and follows 2011's critically and commercially acclaimed El Camino, which is now certified RIAA Platinum.

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On 180-gram vinyl, with a download code. Mighty 2004 album from the beaut blues duo outta Akron! Includes "10am Automatic" and "Till I Get My Way".

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Vinyl LP pressing. 2003 sophomore album from the acclaimed Alt-Rock/Blues duo.

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Magic Potion, the Black Keys' fourth album, is a spectacularly stripped-down set of sneakily melodic blues-besotted rock concocted in the Akron, Ohio basement studio of drummer Patrick Carney. Guitarist-singer Dan Auedback is possessed of a compelling, hurt-beyond-his-years voice and an approach to lead guitar that is both wildly expressive and utterly succinct. The self-taught Carney, who anchors these tracks, may force writers to return "heavy" to the rock-critic lexicon as a seriously praiseworthy term. The Black Keys maintain a punk terseness to their adamantly do-it-yourself sound; they're as single-minded in their idiosyncratic evocation of the electric Mississippi blues as artists like the late Junior Kimbrough and R. L. Burnside as the Ramones were about early sixties rock and roll. However, there is nothing high-concept or ironically distanced about their style; it's all sweat, sincerity and as much swagger as Carney's basement allows. This is the LP version.

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Vinyl LP pressing of this 2006 EP from the Alt-Rock duo, a collection of songs written by Blues great Junior Kimbrough.

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Limited Edition of 1,000 on 180 GRAM Vinyl