Black Keys

On 2002′s “The Big Come Up,” the Black Keys were all grime. Recorded in the most lo-fi of ways — in drummer Pat Carney’s basement using an old 8-track — the duo’s debut was as close to the blues as two young white boys from Northeast Ohio were going to get. And it was impressively close.

Nine years, six albums and one hell of a slow burn later, the Black Keys aren’t exactly the same straightforward  duo. Lyrically, they’re the same guys they’ve always been — times get tough with women-folk, and their rate of staying versus going hovers around 50 percent. Musically, there have been multiple attempts to step outside of their signature sound; there have also been several attempts to find a place for producer Danger Mouse in what they do.

On past Black Keys albums, the duo sounded effortlessly vintage-cool, a time capsule for what the blues-steeped genre of rock’n'roll used to be. On new album “El Camino,” out now, the band tries — perhaps a little too hard — to sound “retro,” from throwback surf-rock riffs to kitschy organ accents and more handclapping than Simon and Garfunkel’s “Cecilia.” They’re still channeling classic rock, but now it’s more T. Rex than Cream.

This isn’t the first time the band has gone in such a direction, with last year’s “Tighten Up,” which Carney told Billboard was the band’s attempt at writing a radio hit, serving as a teaser. It’s an impossible standard to expect a band not to evolve musically over the course of 10 years, and to not go in the way of what has made them more popular. With that said, the 11 tracks on “El Camino” are as catchy — but perhaps more importantly, TV/film-synch ready — as anything climbing up the Rock Songs or Alternative Songs charts, and are probably more carefully crafted to sound that way. The Black Keys don’t mess around.

So which songs on the Black Keys’ “El Camino” are worth checking out? Read our track-by-track review of the album here.

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