Let's Rock - The Black Keys: Review
are an Ohio rock duo that emerged in the early 2000's as a youthful and fiery rock act with their blistering 2004 garage rock album Rubber Factory. The band rose from the underground into the rock mainstream with a change in style that saw higher recording quality and clearer mixing on the part of producer Danger Mouse over the course of 4 studio albums from 2008-2014. This included 2010's grammy award winning Brothers, known as the bands breakthrough album into the commercial rock realm as well as the fantastic El Camino in 2011. The last release from the band came in 2014 with the critically average Turn Blue and now four years later the duo has returned and chosen to self produce their 9th studio album Let's Rock.
Review By Lavender:
While The Black Keys have never been an envelope pushing genre defying rock group they do have a long running consistency of making excellent garage rock and contemporary rock. In their underground days they released one truly fantastic record in Rubber Factory as well as a handful of noteworthy ones like Thickfreakness and Rubber Potion. But since the addition of Danger Mouse on production the consistency has been even tighter. While Attack & Release as well as Brothers were solid starts the true magnum opus and one of the best pure rock albums of this entire decade came with 2011's El Camino. After the sonic detour Turn Blue that dropped in 2014 I was interested in what creative direction this album may take but rock fans can rest assured that Let's Rock stays true to its name and is more indebted to the worlds of classic rock than any previous one of the duo's works.
The era got off to a hot start with some great singles including the classic rock rager Lo/Hi. The track features a killer lead vocal refrain over one of the catchiest hooks you'll hear in rock music this year. There are driving fuzzy guitar riffs that persist over the verses and drive the song from one passage to the next. With solid rock lyrics this track pulls from many by the numbers rock moments and blends them into a fantastic track. Eagle Birds wasn't quite as thrilling but it has some soaring lead vocals on its hook that fly over its sharp guitar riffs. The "Everybody wanna be lonely" chorus is admittedly underwhelming but as a single it isn't one of the sharpest tracks here. The final single was an improvement and it has grown on me since I first heard it. Go has some sharp vocal melodies guaranteed to get stuck in your head, despite a simple formula the track manages to hit one time after another for a pretty satisfying single.
The rest of the album here follows a pretty predictable formula, while the hooks aren't the sharpest nearly every song features some excellent guitar riffs, great performances all around, and unfortunately predictable songwriting. There are a handful of exceptions to the rule and thankfully they are good more than bad. Tell Me Lies has emerged as one of my favorite songs here that takes a much more measured role but has some great vocals on the hook and a sugary sweet refrain that fits into the measured instrumental. Under The Gun is a tune that that could slip comfortably into a classic rock playlist with its jammy guitars and careening chorus but it also features some incredibly sharp songwriting that reminds me of some classic radio rock hits.
Walk Across The Water and Get Yourself Together are the least interesting tracks here the former of which being a key driven jammy song that sounds like an uninspired campy ballad. Together is a track that has an awful hook with some up and down singing that gets annoying really quickly an even though it does feature some decent guitar its hard to get over the hook.
There are a handful of other tracks here that embody a very comfortable brand of rock that isn't necessarily fresh but is decent while on, This includes the opening song Shine A Little Light which sets the scene with some garage rock riffs that blur together throughout the track. It also includes the closer Fire Walk With Me a track that brings some cleaner but heavier guitars and guides the album out on a note that is measured but hits the right notes.
On Let's Rock The Black Keys don't truly return to the glory of their best records. They are so indebted to rock history that it feels like almost nothing original happens on this album but thankfully the veteran status of Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach shines through the lack of fresh ideas. Rock is a series of punchy rock songs that manage some fiery guitar work and tightly knit compositions that rarely gets boring, but also rarely shows you something you weren't expecting. The tunes here are mostly good but the lack of creativity is one of the records defining traits. 6/10
