Tightened Up

This is my review of the latest Black Keys album, and I'm hoping that Chris (who is also planning on picking it up) will share his thoughts on it later, for the purposes of comparison. Here goes.

The Black Keys are great. Let's get that out of the way first. They may very well be my favorite current band, and are definitely top five for me. In my opinion, Chulahoma, The Big Come Up, and Rubber Factory are just about as good as music has been over the last decade or so. And that's why I feel like the latest album, Brothers, represents a crisis for Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney.

Don't get me wrong- I like the album. It's good fun, most of the time, and will likely be one of the best releases this year. But this is hardly the same Black Keys that made their best records in a basement and in an abandoned industrial building. There was a marked change in the album preceding this one, Attack & Release, a change which has only become more pronounced in the latest offering. Like Brothers, Attack was a much more highly processed album than the norm for these guys, with most of their blues base replaced by R&B and soul- but, given that it was purportedly written to be made alongside Ike Turner (who died before it could be made), that made sense to me. But this album has gone ahead with the same aesthetic, splicing the blues-garage rock of the early records with disco and studio tricks.

I had been worried after Attack that maybe the Keys were exhausted. A straight up riff-rock band can only go so far, particularly with only two members: it is a self-limiting genre. The sparseness of the sound, which makes those first few records so appealing, cannot be sustained indefinitely without lapsing into production of songs too similar to be memorable. When Attack was followed up by a solo effort from Auerbach and a record put out by Carney's side-project, Drummer, I thought they might either split or stop recording new material. What I didn't expect was a trip even deeper into the world of digital effects and slick editing.

For the purposes of comparison, here are videos of "Tighten Up" from the new album, and "Heavy Soul" from the debut, The Big Come Up.





To be fair to them, the Keys are stilling producing interesting sounds, sometimes even compelling sounds. But the difference is that the later products tend to aim at being "interesting." Early on- on Big Come Up, Magic Potion, and so on- they took the inherent limitations of a two-man band and used them like negative space in a painting. They accepted that they would have to be based around staggering, jittery rhythms on the drums, monolithic guitar parts, and the sheer, unaltered perfection of Dan Auerbach's blues voice (like gravel, blood, and barbed wire). They forced themselves to be creative to compensate for the stripped-down methodology, and they came up with some of the best rock and roll this generation has produced.

But Attack introduced them to shortcuts: overdubbing, digital alteration, the use of many different instruments instead of the basic guitar-drum dynamic. They started being creative in the editing instead of the composing. They gave up craftiness and invention for technology. It's noteworthy that most of Attack's tracks sound better performed live, without the benefit of backing musicians and Danger Mouse's production. But the band stands now at a crossroads: they can essentially pick two things that will keep them alive, and one that might kill them.

They can fully commit to a shift in aesthetic, embracing the weird indie idiosyncrasy they seem to be toying with (especially with the disco elements, which groups like MGMT seem to be doing their best to resurrect). If they do this, they will cut ties to their original sound, which would be disappointing but viable.

They can expand the band roster and return to their bluesy roots. They have quite a following among musicians, and Robert Plant, at the very least, once expressed interest in playing bass for them. With a full three-piece sound, they could elaborate on their early bare-bones thump. I think Magic Potion and Rubber Factory each hinted at their potential in this direction. Songs like "The Flame," "10 A.M. Automatic," and "Stack Shot Billy" could incorporate a fuller sound without losing the essential flavor. All things considered, I think this is the best possible option, at least for fans of the band's original M.O.

But if they do neither of these things, and simply continue on in their current direction, I think they're going to fizzle. They cannot sustain this hybridized blues-soul-pop thing for long, especially if they insist on involved production like they have lately. Brothers sounds almost like it's coming apart at the seams. As I see it, "Tighten Up" is one of the best songs on the record. But that's just the problem: they've tightened up. The looseness, the simplicity, and the sheer enthusiasm of the early stuff is missing. They've become too polished, and, as a result, the sound of Brothers seems bloated and tense. I just hope they figure it out before it bursts.

Dave T