There's no denying The Black Keys' have kept themselves busy since the May 2010 release of their Grammy-winning album Brothers. Now the band tells SPIN that they've also recorded their next studio album. The new album, due out later this year on Nonesuch, was recorded in Dan Auerbach's studio in Nashville and produced by Danger Mouse. "It's the fastest we've ever played," Auerbach tells SPIN. "The new album doesn't sound like Brothers. It doesn't have that open soul feel to it. It's way more driving and the tempos are really fast."
There's no denying The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney have kept themselves busy since the May 2010 Nonesuch release of their now multiple Grammy-winning album Brothers, as anyone who has seen the band perform live in concert and on TV can attest. Now, the band tells SPIN magazine, there's a little something else they've been working on: recording their next studio album. The new album, due out later this year on Nonesuch, was recorded in Auerbach's studio in Nashville and produced by Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, who helmed 2008's Attack & Release and produced the Brothers track "Tighten Up."
Dan Auerbach tells SPIN's William Goodman that the new album features some of the fastest playing he and Carney have ever done, giving it a different feel than their previous record. "It's way more driving and the tempos are really fast."
In the interview, he offers specifics on a couple of the new tracks—"Lonely Boy" and "Little Black Submarine"—and gives a sense of the overall sound they were looking to achieve on the album.
"I really like when every instrument in the band is a rhythm instrument," Auerbach says. "This record has a lot of that going on—guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards all working together as a rhythm instrument. But unlike Brothers, which has more of these slower songs with an open feeling, [the new LP] is definitely fast."
To find out more on The Black Keys' forthcoming album, read In the Studio: The Black Keys at spin.com.
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The Black Keys have a few festival dates coming up later this summer, following this past month's North American tour, which came to a close last night at Artpark in Buffalo, New York.
"The Artpark cleaning staff undoubtedly had their work cut out for them Wednesday night with all the filthy riffs Black Keys tracked into this joint," raves Buffalo News reviewer Joseph Popiolkowski. "Auerbach and Carney are not blood brothers, of course, but they play with the same understanding of each other’s musical minds that real brothers might." Read the review at buffalonews.com.
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Following Tuesday's show at the John Labatt Centre in London, Ontario, London Free Press reviewer James Reaney says: "Thanks to two guys from Akron who rock like 10, the John Labatt Centre was filled and thrilled with swamp blues on Tuesday night. Over about 80 minutes of loud, precise power, singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney were in command for the blues of 2011 as raw truth, sexiness and even film noir." Read the review at lfpress.com.
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The Montreal Gazette's Bernard Perusse, reviewing Monday's show at the Bell Centre in Montreal, describes the band's brand of blues as "a greasy, post-Zep, garage-influenced, brain-meltingly loud recasting of the music that gave us rock n’ roll. But that doesn’t make it any less primal than its venerable ancestor."
Monday's performance, writes Perusse, "was a million miles away from mainstream rock entertainment, and all the more exciting for it." He concludes: "In the end, maybe the unlikely popularity of the Black Keys can be explained by the answer too simple not to be true: this music is in our collective DNA. We need it to survive."
Read the review at montrealgazette.com.
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For information on upcoming shows, head to nonesuch.com/on-tour.
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