Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney \u2013 where have you been all my life??? Sure, 94% of that statement is in jest…but there is still 6% that can\u2019t help but ask the question.<\/p>\n
It would be hard to have listened to popular music in whatever name this decade has been labeled without being aware of The Black Keys in some form. They may have had humble beginnings and worked their way up the musical landscape ladder through time, sweat and tears, but there is no question that they have reached the point where they are in the ether of \u201cwhat is the world listening to.\u201d<\/p>\n
With all that being said, your humble reviewer had interacted with exactly ZERO of their albums. Don\u2019t ask me why, as William Joel once said. I had a cursory knowledge of some of the big singles that were present on television and in commercials, but in the Olympic sized swimming pool that is the Black Keys, I was sitting in the shallow end reading the paper and yelling at kids to stop splashing me.<\/p>\n
But there was something that grabbed my attention as I perused the \u201cComing Soon\u201d portion of Apple Music a few months ago….a title of Let\u2019s Rock<\/i> and an electric chair outlined in pink (I\u2019m not a complicated guy, as it turns out). And following through the portal, there was \u201cEagle Birds\u201d the second track on the record. Immediately, the muscular guitar riff and pulsating drum beat demanded I keep listening.<\/p>\n
There is such an incredibly appealing, retro-sound to the entirety of Let\u2019s Rock, <\/i>which I have little doubt has been labeled as derivative and uninspired in corners of the critic-industrial complex (It\u2019s called Greta Van Fleetitis). There\u2019s a beautiful, restrained approach to the production that easily harkens back to the early \u201870s when rock music actually sounded<\/i> like rock music! A novel concept, right? A quick glance at the personnel for the record reveals Auerbach and Carney the titular Black Keys, and two backing vocalists. That\u2019s it; four people! All songs written and produced by Auerbach and Carney, with nary a song with a team of 16 credits to be found. Don\u2019t get me wrong, that\u2019s not to be a condemnation of the current pop music scene….but I\u2019m not mad about it either.<\/p>\n
One of my personal theories about a great rock song is that, either consciously or subconsciously, the listener wants to move to it. This is not a rule without exceptions, but I generally find it to be the case. So one of the aspects I truly enjoy with regards to Let\u2019s Rock<\/i> is the groove<\/i> that settles in.\u00a0 A song like \u201cLo\/Hi\u201d takes the inherent danceability of Marc Bolan era T. Rex and just runs with it. \u201cSit Around And Miss You\u201d completely captures the vibe of Stealers Wheel, down to the point where I wanted to tie somebody in a chair and shimmy and shuffle while holding a razor….but those are my issues.<\/p>\n
But just because The Black Keys are referential doesn\u2019t mean they still don\u2019t have their identity intact on Let\u2019s Rock<\/i>. \u201cGet Yourself Together\u201d and \u201cGo\u201d aren\u2019t necessarily the best<\/i> versions of a stereotypical Keys song, but they push the right buttons. There\u2019s a craftsmanship present that I give Auerbach and Carney a great deal of credit for: they aren\u2019t messing around with what works. (It should be noted that with this being my first exposure to the catalogue, my curiosity has been piqued as to what they would sound like IF they tried a vastly different production style).<\/p>\n
One of the cardinal sins a rock band can make is too much of a good thing; if I can trim an album down by a few songs, then should they have been included? The Black Keys seems to understand this philosophy quite well, as Let\u2019s Rock<\/i> clocks in at just under 40 minutes. It\u2019s a breezy listen that you wouldn\u2019t even guess runs as \u201clong\u201d as it does; truly a fun, pleasurable record. I think these guys might just have a shot at making it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":33871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8817],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-45698","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-black-keys","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45698"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}