The Black Keys - Attackand Release

Fri 11th Apr, 2008 in Music Reviews

How the hell can two nerdy looking dudes from AkronOhio pump out the heaviest blues of the modern era? Buggered if I know what goes on in their respective garages. but shit, they must have a battalion of Shakespearian witches workin’ the cauldrons behind the scenes. Attack and Release, the Black Keys’ latest release, is a brew and a half. You sort of expect a human skull to bob up from the soup at any moment.

When I heard the Black Keys’ first album, The Big Come Up, I found myself on my knees, hands raised to the sky, shouting “Lordy, lordy, hallelujah”. I knew the messiahs had finally arrived. But who’d have thought the second coming would involve two nerdy looking guys doing the best blues since the pasty Poms produced John Mayall and, of course, the master himself, Eric Clapton, in the – œ60s. There has been little to equal them since. Well, not until the two maestros turned up at any rate.

Pound for pound, The Black Keys can lay waste to any other bastard on the field of bruising old school heavy blues. Each new album tears you to pieces but oh so fucking slowly. Attack and Release is no different. It is a deep, dark blue, like a spreading bruise caused by a recent impact with a double-decker bus. In many ways, the new album is the same sweet stuff as their other five, but there are a few new aspects to it. There is a gentleness to some of the songs that was missing in the first few albums. Track one, All You Ever Wanted even has a Neil Young, Springsteen feel to it. The whole album, to me, feels a little more diverse than the previous ones, but it still has that Black Keys brutality to it.

So there it is. If you loved them since the first or have never heard of the (however unlikely that is) just bloody get it. The Black Keys are true musical thugs – baseball bat wielding bruisers hiding in the standard dress of the mighty northern hemisphere nerd. They should be charged with assault and battery for this sort of thing, but… phew…I’m glad they’re back.