Back in 2002, it seemed easy to discern which of the Midwestern minimalist blues-rock duos was which:
the White Stripes were the art-punks, naming albums after Dutch art movements, while
the Black Keys were the nasty primitives, bashing out thrilling, raw records like their 2002 debut
The Big Come Up and its 2003 follow-up
Thickfreakness. Six years later, the duos appear to have switched camps, as
Jack White leads the
Stripes down a path of obstinate traditionalism while
the Black Keys get out, way out, on their fifth album,
Attack & Release. Evidently, their 2004 mini-masterpiece
Rubber Factory represented the crest of their brutal blues wave, as ever since singer/guitarist
Dan Auerbach and drummer
Patrick Carney have receded from the gnarled precision of their writing and the big, brutal blues thump, they started to float into the atmosphere with their 2006 EP-length tribute to
Junior Kimbrough, Chulahoma. Ever since then,
the Black Keys have emphasized waves of sound over either ballast or song, something that should be evident from the choice of
Danger Mouse as the producer of
Attack & Release, a seemingly unlikely pair that found common ground in the form of
Ike Turner.
Danger Mouse worked with the rock & roll renegade when he produced
the Gorillaz's
Demon Days and the plan was to have
the Black Keys cut an album with
Ike but
Turner's death turned the project into a full-fledged
Keys album. That's the official story, anyway, but the timeline doesn't quite seem to fit --
Ike died December 12, 2007 and a finished copy of
Attack & Release was out in February, which is an awfully short turnaround to complete an album -- nor does the sound of the album seem to fit that timeline, either, as it's elliptical, open-ended, and reliant on the spacy sonics
the Black Keys have sketched out since
Rubber Factory, so it's hard to imagine where
Turner would have fit into this. But it's not hard at all to see how avant guitarist
Marc Ribot fits into this elastic mix, as this is the kind of restless, textural roots-aware rock reminiscent of the spirit, if not quite the sound, of
Elvis Costello and
Tom Waits, two mavericks
Ribot has played with in years past. This shift to sound over song has been so gradual for
the Black Keys that
Ribot's cameo doesn't seem intrusive, nor does
Danger Mouse's hazy production feel forced upon the band, it's filled with details so sly they're almost imperceptible. As always,
Danger Mouse encourages the band to intensify what's already there, and so
Attack & Release willfully drifts, as dreamy, artfully sonic sculptures are punctured by
Auerbach's rumbling guitars and
Carney's clattering drums. But where the interplay of the
Auerbach and
Carney always felt immediate in their earliest work, there's a bit of a remove here, with the riffs used as paint brushes instead of blunt objects. The same can be said of the songs, where even the most immediate tunes -- "Psychotic Girl," the B-side "Remember When" -- don't grab and hold like those on the group's earliest records, and they're not really growers either, as the point here is not the individual tunes but rather the greater picture, as everything here weaves together to create a mood: one that shifts but doesn't stray, one that's nebulous but not formless, one that's evocative but not haunting. To be sure, it's an accomplishment and one that showcases
the Black Keys' deepening skills but at times it's hard not to miss how the duo used to grab a listener by the neck and not let go. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine