Living on Blues Power
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Dan Auerbach, the unassuming front man and resident snake charmer of the Akron, Ohio-based blues titans the Black Keys, must be some kind of savant. Had the authority of rock myth not died away decades ago, it would be easy to convince people that he sold his soul to the devil around the turn of the century somewhere near Cleveland.
How else could a white, 20-something college dropout from the Midwest channel the grizzled souls of some of the hardest black troubadours ever to walk the delta? Mr. Auerbach, who, with drummer and high school buddy Patrick Carney, returns today with the Black Keys’ fourth album, “Magic Potion” (Nonesuch), sings and plays guitar like he did 40 years at Parchman Farm for a crime he didn’t commit.
The question now, following three successively improving albums stuffed with the best modern blues music anyone’s recorded in a long time, is whether the Black Keys are going to be a band that’s still important in 25 years, or whether the tires beneath the truck they’re driving will start to wear thin.
On “Magic Potion,” Messrs. Auerbach and Carney once again manage to sound like four musicians all by themselves, diving further into the swamp of reverb and distortion and out of the straight blues that have defined them since their 2002 debut, “The Big Come Up.” The Keys know that the blues and rock ‘n’ roll are best left unvarnished; here that means more Led Zeppelin and less Junior Kimbrough, more 4/4 pounding and less skip steps, and a total disposal of things like keyboards and acoustic guitars. Gone are the faithful covers of blues staples such as “Have Love Will Travel,” from 2003’s “Thickfreakness,” and latter-day gems such as the Kinks’ “Act Nice and Gentle,” from 2004’s “Rubber Factory.” In their place is a steady roster of jagged guitar hooks and hard rock hip-shakers; it’s the heaviest music the Keys have ever played.
From the screaming opening bars of “Just Got To Be,” through the slide guitar stomp of “Just a Little Heat,” to the power chords of “Modern Times,” the Keys go to the soiled root of what made garage rock originals like the Animals and the Stooges so powerful. Mr. Auerbach’s limitless arsenal of molten riffs might become overbearing if they weren’t so refreshing, while Mr. Carney’s drumming, though less nuanced than in previous outings, adroitly keeps the big ship chugging along.
On the ballads and the more 1960s-inspired tunes, such as the staccato dirge of “Strange Desire,” the essence of the blues is never far away.”I don’t wanna go to hell, but if I do / it’ll be ’cause of you,” Mr. Auerbach sings. “And a young man don’t make mistakes / ’till he hits the brakes.” These songs satisfy thanks to Mr. Auerbach’s gift for making his worn howl and guitar twang sound vulnerable, but they lack the exploration that made their counterparts on the Keys’ prior albums — “I Cry Alone”on “Thickfreakness” and “Stack Shot Billy” on “Rubber Factory” come to mind — so remarkable. In places it’s unclear whether the duo has developed its sound or dumbed it down. The credo of elemental simplicity, which has always made the Black Keys sound so appealingly authentic, fails them at times.
Then again, none of that may matter as long as they continue to write songs like the show-stopping “GiveYour Heart Away.” Not many bands could spawn a riff that Howlin’ Wolf and Soundgarden would both have been proud to call their own; it’s the musical equivalent of jamming your car keys into a wall socket. Songs like this one promise a continued wellspring of inspiration from the Black Keys, even if it may sometimes seem that they’ve locked themselves into a musical tradition they’ll never really transcend.
But that’s for the future to decide. If Messrs. Auerbach and Carney have accomplished just one thing with “Magic Potion,” it’s the proof that a guitar, a simple drum kit, and some resilient speakers are all that’s needed to warm the heart of rock ‘n’ roll.