With El Camino, the Black Keys follow through on the promise of Brothers. Oddly enough, to do this, they had to make an album that sounded very little like it. Brothers had a decade of obscurity behind it, and with its unexpected success, brought everybody over to their side. But getting them to stay there was going to require some doing. El Camino represents one of the finest examples of deliberate hitmaking I've seen in a very long time.
Basically, after you have a hit like "Tighten Up" and "Howling For You," you don't get to go back to the little rooms (to paraphrase Jack White.) Some bands elect to chase their newfound audience off. Some bands try too hard to keep them. With a band like the Black Keys, that would be bad. There's the problem: if they made an album that ignored their success, their label would probably chuck them to the curb. If they tried too hard to please their new fans, they'd end up pleasing nobody. Everybody wants to have hits, but nobody wants to get caught in the act of aiming for a hit. The magic of El Camino is that it succeeds and in fact thrives: it gives the people what they want, the Black Keys album they dreamed was next. No more, no less.
All that is why this album is noticeably brighter and more upbeat than the often dour Brothers. That one was good music, and I wouldn't fault them if they didn't change the routine for their next album, but instead they rose to the challenge of creating a great Black Keys album that was also a chart topping monster. This sort of premise is usually a recipe for a compromise that pleases nobody.
What they ended up with was not merely an album that contained hits, but an album that was made out of them. Every track on this album has a welcoming air to it, a feeling like you've been hearing it in the background of your entire life since forever. That's not just because "Little Black Submarines" is a compressed version of "Stairway To Heaven," but also because songs like "Gold on the Ceiling" and "Stop Stop" have those irresistible grooves you didn't know you'd been craving this whole time. Moments in between those peaks, like "Money Maker," "Run Right Back," "Sister" and "Dead and Gone" keep the ear from waning. This album is compulsively listenable. Each track cements the fact that Auerbach and Carney are the makers of great rock music.
Still, it never betrays the sound that brought us to the Keys two years ago. Auerbach's guitar wails with wry, dark pain, his vocals distant and obscure, Carney's drums thundering insistently, tons of interesting minor choices all throughout. This is auteurial rock, still, while also being for the masses.
It works because they're great at what they do, and know how to soak the album with those primal elements that makes music so addictive to so many people. "Lonely Boy," the opening track and first single, announces it with great urgency. There's a reason why this is the "mainstream" stuff, though: it's fun. It's big, it's groovy, it's hook-laden, you find yourself humming it, it moves you. It's fucking delicious. If you're an artist playing to small audience, it's no great shakes to make an album you can be proud of, just by following your instincts. An album like this requires walking a remarkable tightrope act.
I think it would be hilarious if I started this project up by pissing everyone off up front by insulting this (generally beloved) album. It's the kind of production that seems destined for critical doubletalk: "Oh, it's good, it has its charms, but you know... it's imperfect." "Imperfect" is a stupid thing to say in the context of a music review because it implies perfection is possible, or that imperfection doesn't lead to some really interesting sounds occasionally.
Besides, how could you really hate on an album that includes at least one song as great as "Tighten Up?"
What it does, and provides for its listener, is a safe bet. The duo of Auerbach and the other guy (I'm kidding... as any quick Wikipedia search could tell you, it's Patrick Carney, so I have no excuse for not knowing... or at least looking it up) find a good pace and work with it for 15 tracks. There's not a lot, aesthetically, different between "I'm Not The One" and "Next Girl" and "Sinister Kid." This isn't a bad thing, I guess I should say: being that none of the tracks is individually bad, you can easily use this CD on long drives or at parties where people need to mingle. Music as social function. The drums thump and the guitar jangles in that cool, fuzzy, bluesy way. I've described it as a kind of modern blues funk, but Auerbach's voice, as good as it is, sounds a step or two removed from the actual blues. Like real sorrow or sexual arousal actually eludes him, even though it's pretty well represented in the music. I mean, right now I'm listening to "She's Long Gone," and it ends with a pretty intense, swaggering solo. But at times in the 15 tracks, it feels a bit like it was made, very well but still, from a blues construction kit. You wanna hear this album in microcosm, listen to Buddy Guy's "She Suits Me To a Tee." There's a lot more horns on that song, but then again it was considerably hornier.
Oy. Master of the backhanded compliment. If I like the album so much, why am I talking so much smack about it?
Here I am slagging the album for not being a boundless burst of creativity, when I can't help but admit that it's a damn good listen. As distant as Auerbach's blues may be, there's something affecting in his melancholy, something really effective about his and Carney's fuzz funk and his affected, darkened vocals. The sound fucking works, there's just a whole lot of it and nothing but. But it's never bad.
At worst, the repetition dilutes the quality of songs that could stand on their own. At best, it ensures every song is at least this good, and forms a pretty considerable listening experience, like I said: a safe bet. The sound is good, and consistently so, even when they change it up just a tad with falsettos ("Everlasting Light") or unconventional flourishes like "The Go Getter." Whether with the thundering desire of "Howlin' For You" or the sinister slink of "Ten Cent Pistol," it's all part of a whole and it never betrays its hardcore blues devotion by indulging in overt experimentation that might taint their clarity of sound. This is blues rock that works, works hard, works well, and works on its own merit.
It might wear on you by the time you get to "The Go Getter," or you might just feel the whole album without tiring. In any case, it's still an easy recommendation from me. It's especially pointed in this day and age, when you can select nine or 10 of your favourite tracks and keep them on your iPod and not worry too much about the ones you've left off. I recommend tracks 1-6 and "Never Gonna Give You Up," which I'm sure we were all dismayed to find is not a Rick Astley cover. If you don't dig instrumentals, you can swap out "Black Mud" for "Unknown Brother" or "Sinister Kid." But the cover, "Never Gonna Give You Up," is essential, as is aforementioned potential song-of-the-year "Tighten Up."
The former is the most meaningful statement on the album, with some of the best vocals. The latter is the distillation of the entire album: it's got the best pounding drums, the coolest riffs, and the easiest tune to hum. It culminates in a pretty wicked breakdown and its the best example of song construction on the album. If you don't like this song, you won't like the album. If you like that song, you'll like the rest just fine.
The last song, "These Days," is the one that can be taken or left, depending on how one feels about ballads. I like it, if only because it's the one truly unusual piece on the album. It takes some Otis Redding and filters it through some Jeff Buckley to arrive at a truly uncharacteristic, unexpectedly sweet, sad finale for an otherwise easy, laid back, funky tough album. It pushes it a bit over the edge and makes me want to go back to the start, even though I know getting there is a bit of a walk around the block.
So that's how it's going to be sometimes. I'd love to just outright praise everything, but every so often, probably more than I'd even expect, I'll have to break something down before I can build it up. Maybe it's hard to convince people I like something if I'm willing to say anything bad about it. But look at it this way:
This album is called Brothers. I don't know if you out there have siblings, but as for me and mine, we fight. A lot. We get irritated, we bicker, we get sick of each other, we have disagreements and there are times I'd rather cut myself in the genitals than face another day of conversation with one of my brothers. But they're my brothers, and I love them, and there will always be times I can come back to them and appreciate them for who they are. And I'll stand by them and help them whenever I can. I mean, don't tell them I said so, but they're family, so they probably sense it on some level.
That's what it's like with this album, and what it's like with criticism sometimes. It's that weird delicate balance between love and hate, praise and detraction, that helps you understand what exactly you're looking at.
// Amazon.com
