Then I heard their debut album Big Come Up and was taken in by their scuzzed up retro blues riffs. While the Big Come up showed potential they really hit the mark and took the raw power up a level with Thickfreakness. On Rubber Factory and Magic Potion they showed some more elements with some acoustic and more subtle songs thrown into the mix. But it was still the sound of The Black Keys. What else can you do with just drums and guitar? Its not like they are going to get Danger Mouse in to produce an album are they? What would be the point of that? It would be like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. But that’s just what they did on Attack & Release, and it worked because Danger Mouse didn’t so much stamp his mark on the album as brush on it here and there. Attack & Release is the Bridge to my favourite album of last year Brothers. It sounds a world apart from their first album with a full range of instruments. Fine in the studio but what about when they play live? Easy just get in a couple of session musicians. No big deal.
That’s something that The White Stripes couldn’t do. They added some different instruments on their latter albums but they could never get away with having a couple of session musicians on stage dressed in their red and white or red and black uniform.
As much as I like Brothers recently I’ve been going back to the first couple of raw sounding albums and a brilliant live recording at The Corn Exchange in Brighton.
DL The Black Keys: Thickfreakness (live) mp3 from here.
