Brothers – The Black Keys ★★★½

Year	Album	Artist	Stars	Score	Genre
2010	Brothers	The Black Keys	★★★½	71	Rock	Indie Rock	Blues Rock

I look back fondly on the days when The Black Keys were considered hip and cool, when they seemed like one of the last holdouts of the garage rock movement that started in the early 2000s with the Strokes and the White Stripes while indie pop acts like Foster the People, Passion Pit and Grouplove were starting to explode on the radio. 

2011’s El Camino was probably the peak of the band’s commercial popularity, but Brothers in 2010 was the pinnacle of what they set out to do. Fun drums by Patrick Carney, simple but catchy guitar riffs, raw rock vocals by Dan Auerbach with well-placed falsetto, and a lo-fi, stoner Danger Mouse aesthetic that felt like you were running across the top of a vinyl while it spun on a record player. Most of the tracks are mid-tempo and bring the same bluesy coolness to them, with hints of electric harpsichord and tambourine.  

The album opens with a great run of seven songs. Sure, it’s mid-tempoed rock music made for car commercials, but you can’t deny the intoxicating whistle of “Tighten Up” (which I used as a ringtone for a year on my last flip phone), the groove of “Howlin’ for you” and the smoothness of “Everlasting Light.” 

At the halfway point of the record, you get a lot more of the straight blues songs. While none of the songs are total misses, none really stand out either until you get to “Never Gonna Give You Up,” although songs like the Odelay-inspired “Sinister Kids” might work a bit more than those like “The Go Getter.”