With Jack White taking an extended hiatus from the White Stripes with his new group The Raconteurs, The Black Keys have been pushed to the top of surprisingly vast heap of garage punk-blues duos with their fourth full-length studio album, Magic Potion.
The band, comprised of singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer/producer Pat Carney, started out of Akron, Ohio in 2002. With their stripped down blues-rock the duo has garnered significant critical acclaim.
With their workman-like touring schedule and high-profile opener gigs, including opening for Radiohead this summer, The Black Keys have established a diverse fan base made up of everyone from Coachella scenesters to neo-hippie Bonnarooers.
On their three previous albums, the duo had become increasingly adept at creating and evolving their signature sound – peaking with their last release, Rubber Factory.
Magic Potion has proven to be no exception. They don’t have a Jack White-like desire to progress musically; in fact they might have taken a step backwards.
While Rubber Factory features a diverse array of tempos, Magic Potion finds a slow relaxed groove early in the album and rides it out to the end. This is the biggest flaw of the album for it makes a lot of the songs indistinguishable and possibly even forgettable. As a result, the standout tracks are those that truly separate themselves from the album’s status quo, most notably the first single “Your Touch” and instant stand-out “Strange Desire.”
Like their previous efforts, Magic Potion has an audio aesthetic that allows any song from it to be instantly distinguishable from their past work.
This album is their most spacious in terms of the recording.
More so than ever, Auerbach’s soulful voice is at the forefront as it’s doused in reverb. The result of this is a greater focus on the lyrics, which is the band’s biggest improvement from past albums.
In the past, Auerbach expertly wrote with the blues cliches of love-had and love-lost, which still exists on this album. Conversely, Magic Potion marks The Black Keys’ first attempts at social commentary, the best examples of which are the raucous “Modern Times” and the poignant “Goodbye Babylon”
Magic Potion is the band’s first release under their new label Nonesuch records after leaving Fat Possum Records. It’s also the band’s first album on a major label, which some might argue affected the record.
The album suffers from a lack of the roughness and urgency of past records, making Magic Potion, after a series of great albums, The Black Keys’ first simply good album.
Contact reporter Jesse Fox at diversions@dbk.umd.edu.
