High score for Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney. Barely twelve months after “Delta Kream”, her successful self-therapy with blues and country cover songs, the next work follows. And again, the two are rooting deep in American soil with prominent support. “We’ve been trying to channel our inner ZZ Top for the last three, four years,” joked drummer Carney in America’s ROLLING STONE. He describes the duo’s whereabouts in the traditional milieu and at the same time refers to session guest Billy F. Gibbons, who was there alongside Greg Cartwright (Reigning Sound) and Angelo Petraglia (Kings Of Leon) at his home Easy Eye Sound Studio in Nashville. The pithy group of men touches primordial soup.
The Black Keys are on proven territory
Don’t be fooled by the lead single “Wild Child”: The pounding and thoroughly party-ready rock & rhythm track, which is reminiscent of their 2019 prankish pieces on “Let’s Rock”, is by no means representative – more of a cleverly placed pull-in the spheres that the Black Keys want to occupy in the 21st year of their existence. The maddeningly viscous blues jam “Happiness” is far more accurate. Of the ten songs on the album, next to “Wild Child” there are at best two more in the rock segment: the transparent mid-tempo number “How Long”, in which even the vocals appear to be a little higher pitched, and the one played with a fine feeling Your Team Is Looking Good, which docks with early Buddy Holly.
The rest goes further back in the musical tradition. One circles around the pentatonic scale, quite varied like the JJ Cale-like technique in singing and fingerpicking in “For The Love Of Money”, but always with depth. And yet: without risk on the safe side. The Black Keys are too experienced musicians and also too savvy guys to make mistakes here. You are moving on proven terrain. They do it well, and that has to be enough.
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