Cryin in the chapel of deep blue sin

The Black Keys are your ticket to revisit the dark blues of the smokiest empty backroom bar. Come in off the lonely streets to dust your black boots from the barstool and hear what it sounds like to reap the squalor of history and drive it through distortion and plunked percussion. With 11 tracks of simple blues-rock riffs, The Black Keys are giving the 20-somethings of the world a taste of yearning, sex and soul with their roots hanging out. At the end of it, songs about love and loss are always better than politics and causes. Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney work this formula to their advantage, creating a fresh sound without breaking boundaries. Auerbach's gritty vocals and grittier guitar blends perfectly with Carney's fittingly average drumming, creating songs that just say their piece without the complications of too much texture. The sound is real, with enough heart that you'll forget you've already heard the blues before. It'll leave you wanting your baby back too. When the songs are about loss, they clunk with pain, when they're about good love they soar. thickfreakness's no frills production leaves emptiness to echo even after the last measure.