Appreciate This Band
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The Black Keys are the hottest band since the Rolling Stones invaded America redcoat style. The Black Keys didn’t have to invade. This Ohio duo has been on American soil slowly building a following. They are finally starting to catch on with a broader audience.
Let’s face it...two-man bands are in. Dan Auerbach (vocals, guitar) and Patrick Carney (percussion) got together in 2001 to make their first album The Big Come Up, since then they’ve been rocking out. Their latest release is Attack and Release exemplifies how far they have come with hits such as “Strange Times” and “Psychotic Girl.”
Attack and Release starts out with “All You Ever Wanted,” a slow heartfelt song that sounds depleted yet meaningful. Then the album kicks into gear when “I Got Mine” comes on. “I Got Mine” has a slow tempo but still rocks out, similar to “Where Is My Mind” by the Pixies (the song at the end of Fight Club).
Of course the Black Keys are not a grunge band, they’re genre of choice is blues-rock. After “I Got Mine,” comes the Black Keys best song (according to iTtunes…) called “Strange Times.”
This song speeds up the tempo and really makes you feel like whatever Auerbach is saying is epic. Carney plays the beginning the song with a floor tom beat and then moves to a loose high hat (the clamped cymbal with a foot pedal). Auerbach plays a panicked guitar riff with lyrics such as, “Meant so much, When we first met, People come, from far and near, bless them me, bless them everyone.”
The next song is “Psychotic Girl,” a song about a crazy girlfriend that acts normal in public and outrageous in private. “Psychotic Girl” is a slow masterpiece. Everything sounds great in it, like most of the Black Keys songs. “Psychotic Girl” has a banjo or something that sounds like along with an electric guitar and of course, Carney’s kit. The song drones on steadily. It’s one of those songs you get addicted too and thank whatever religious figure you follow, in my case Mr. Devlin, that the song is over four minutes.
I have never found anybody who does not like this band once they have heard them. Auerbach and Carney have too much chemistry and too great of a style. This blues rock duo has been opening for bands like Radiohead for quite awhile. They are finally getting the recognition they deserve after a whirlwind summer tour that included a local gig in All Points West in New Jersey last month.
What makes the Black Keys so strong? Everything. The songs they play are catchy. The lyrics are dark and mysterious, but still attached to reality. Auerbach manages to cover the bass lines on his lower strings while still holding a melody on his higher strings. Carney also plays the drums with appropriate emphasis: he does not over drum, but instead sticks to the simple yet intricate beats that make the Keys the Keys.
DHS Class of 2009 graduate William Lee Horsely Wygal is a freshmen at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York
