The Black Keys
Brothers

These days I'm not sure whether or not I have any time for the Black Keys; it all depends on whether the band still possess a sense of humour. Recent reports about their reactions to the Chris Marrs Piliero directed video for lead single "Next Girl" - which suggest that they hated it and made Piliero put disclaimers saying as much along the bottom of the clips of scantily clad girls being seduced by and then fighting over a fluffy dinosaur toy - would certainly show the duo up as a couple of stick-in-the-muds, but then it might all be part of an elaborate joke, so elaborate and confusing that it is not really that funny any more anyway. Or there is the no nonsense cover design; they are either humourless or in possession of a sense of humour which only they get.

Do the Black Keys need to have a sense of humour? Do they need to be fun? I guess not, but as the guitar and the drums are probably the two instruments which are the most fun and are able to be picked up by almost anyone and a noise that doesn't sound like the first throes of death created on them, then I would say that they certainly sound like they should be fun on paper. Add to that the fact that their immediate contemporaries in the garage rock revival, just drums and guitar genre are those cheeky, mischievous White Stripes, and it certainly wouldn't be beyond the realms of expectation to expect a Black Keys record to at least make you smile a couple of times.

Brothers just about manages this, but only really on the opening five tracks which are upbeat and still try to push the Keys' increasingly familiar sound in slightly new directions (including a drum beat straight out of Glam Rock's T. Rex on "Howlin' for You"). But after the uneventful instrumental "Black Mud" the pace falls back to a stroll and we are treated to some bland, predictable though soulful tunes which seem to stretch on until the ends of time. The record is only 50 minutes in length but can seem a lot longer, another indicator that the sense of fun and frivolity has departed from the Black Keys camp. It is not as though the band are exploring dark, unhappy places with their subject matter; songs titled "I'm Not the One", "The Only One" and "Never Gonna Give You Up" could quite easily have been (and probably are) the names of sixties soul hits, and these were characteristically upbeat as songs about love so often are.

For me The Black Keys were once a wonderful surprise as I confused them with Black Dice who I was trying to find music by following a discovery that they were linked with the Animal Collective who I was getting into at the time. The guy I bought Magic Potion off made it quite clear that I was massively mistaken to think that the two bands were even remotely similar but I foolishly assumed that my music knowledge was superior and bought it off him anyway. It was one of the best times I've been wrong as I loved Magic Potion and still do to this day. But every release I have since heard by The Black Keys has left me wanting to some degree, and I think the problem is that their sound is very much set in a style and whenever they try to experiment or depart from that style, such as on 2008's Attack & Release, they are largely unsuccessful.

So Brothers can perhaps be viewed as a return to their roots no doubt inspired by a largely unenthusiastic critical reception to their experiments, and whilst the sound is more agreeable, the songs are largely unexceptional and too many. It serves to highlight, to me at least, that The Black Keys are not as exciting as I would have given them credit for when I first stumbled across them. I think it is fair to say that you only really need one Black Keys record, and mine will always be Magic Potion. For many people it is Rubber Factory and for newcomers to the band checking this record out then it may well be Brothers. But anybody who has felt the need for a whole discography by this duo is no doubt without the ability to have a jolly wheeze once in a while, and why we need fifteen songs on this record is beyond me.

C

Track Listing:

1. Everlasting Light
2. Next Girl
3. Tighten Up
4. Howlin' for You
5. She's Long Gone
6. Black Mud
7. The Only One
8. Too Afraid to Love You
9. Ten Cent Pistol
10. Sinister Kid
11. The Go Getter
12. I'm Not the One
13. Unknown Brother
14. Never Gonna Give You Up
15. These Days