The trouble with two-piece groups is ensuring that their sound doesn't stagnate. The White Stripes learned this the hard way when their career trailed off after 2007's Icky Thump. And for a while, it seemed like The Black Keys (guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney) were in a similar situation. Purveyors of a ferocious brand of blues-rock, with 2006's Magic Potion, they were at the end of their rope. Something needed to change.
This change came with their first album with Danger Mouse, 2008's Attack & Release, removed much of The Black Keys' bite (namely Dan Auerbach's guitar) and replaced it with added instrumentation and psychedelic-tinged orchestration. Overall, it gave the impression of a paisley lace doily-pert and intricate but all frills and light substance.
Brothers, released in 2010, on the other hand, beefed up those frills, incorporating a more supple R&B and soul sound. But it didn't play to the band's strengths (yet again, Auerbach's guitar). Brothers yielded a few good songs ("Tighten Up," "Everlasting Light"), and a few intriguing ones, but it was otherwise-to co-opt another song title-"Black Mud."
The trouble with those records lie not in Danger Mouse's retro fetishism as a production style but in The Black Keys themselves.
Even at their bluesiest (2004's Rubber Factory) and their most low-down (2002's garage blues The Big Come Up) Auerbach and Carney never sounded particularly retro. So, while Danger Mouse's presence lent a greater fullness to their sound, Attack & Release and Brothers were the products of a stifled band.
El Camino, however, manages to avoid the pitfalls of their previous collaborations with Danger Mouse. Much of the muck that mired Brothers and the folksy excesses of Attack & Release have been pared down or stripped away; El Camino is all rev and rush.
With Danger Mouse at the helm again, there are those retro touches-organs, handclaps, backing vocals-but they are employed judiciously.
Like the best of The Black Keys' catalog, this album bruises and bludgeons in all the right ways.
Opener "Lonely Boy" sets the tone for the record: a low and pulverizing riff, thumping drums, the occasional organ blast and backing vocals-it is one of the loudest, fastest songs in The Black Keys' repertoire.
The third song, "Gold On The Ceiling," is a low-down groove, with a blistering lead by Auerbach. "Run Right Back" would fit perfectly on a classic rock station, with its fuzzed out riff; "Sister" is a primal disco piece, with Carney's drums romping along with the plodding baseline; the finale "Mind Eraser" is positively sun-kissed.
Interestingly, blues is no longer the aural touchstone, leastwise not the blues the band mined early in their career. The album, while less finicky and precise than their previous works with Danger Mouse, still retains that retro clarity inherent in his production.
El Camino recalls the spirit of ‘70s music-primarily groups like the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac. The comparison isn't clear-cut; El Camino shows no strains of decadence or lassitude, à la Hotel California or Rumours. Instead, it mines the same feelings and sound without being trapped in the era.
In that way, El Camino is like the ideal compromise between the hard-edged days of their first albums and their time with Danger Mouse-the melding of gritty blues-rock and cultured retro ambiance.
This is evident on "Little Black Submarines," the album's highlight. It starts slow: Auerbach strumming an acoustic guitar, plying a telephone operator to put him back on the line with his girl.
Carney's drums and an organ enter, and the song becomes a quiet march. There is a sense of foreboding, mounting tension. Halfway through, it slows and stops. A second of silence, then Auerbach's electric guitar kickstarts the song again, and the song rollicks like the deluge of a wrecked levee-and The Black Keys ride it out to its peak.
Grade: A
