Acting Right Is So Routine, Fever Let Me Live a Dream

Not that long ago I was talking to someone about who the biggest rock band in the country was. After morning the slow decline of the genre we decided that The Black Keys held that titled depending on if you consider Mumford and Sons a rock band or not. It is amazing to think that considering that when they started they were either considered a more pure version of The White Stripes or a complete rip-off (I was in the former camp).

But with their past three albums, the Keys sounded like they were actively looking for rock stardom making short and compact rock songs like a modern day Creedence Clearwater Revival. And they achieved just that with back to back platinum album, an increasingly rare feat these days, with instant earworm guitar riff like on Lonely Boy. They even managed to cram a Led Zeppelin song into three minutes on Little Black Submarines.

So what you do when you are not the biggest band in the country? You go weird just like U2 did on Achtung Baby or Metallica with Load. After all the great riffs the duo came up with on previous albums, the first single off of Turn Blue, Fever featured a fuzzed out bass and keyboards that sound like they came from a sixties garage band. And Fever ended up just being a transition song to ease you into the new Keys, the rest of Turn Blue gets much weirder.

The album starts off with Weight of Love where the nice compact songs the duo has been crafted built around tight riffs turns into an extended near seven minute jam with multiple and lengthy guitar solos. You do not even hear Dan Auerbach’s voice until the two minute, the then the mood it set. Danger Mouse has co-produced two of the last three albums by the band, but Turn Blue is the first time his influence is truly felt as Turn Blue (I have a feeling the multiple bass grooves that populate the album are by his design) feels more like Mouse’s Broken Bells project, moody and psychedelic that seems influenced by early Pink Floyd, but the Black Keys sound is much more complete than either of the Broken Bells albums.

The best parts of Turn Blue is actually when the goes in near ballad mode. Bullet to the Brain sounds like a moodier version of Never Gonna Give You Up from Brothers. And where Broken Bells tried for a hippie version of the Bee-Gees on Holding on For Life, the Keys do a much better job at that with back to back songs Waiting on the Words and 10 Lovers.

The album closer Gotta Get Away reminded me a lot of Bound 2. No, not that I could envision Dan and drummer Patrick Carney recreate the video Seth Rogan / James Franco style, but after such a sound departure of Yeezus, it seem like Kanye West put the song at the end of the album as to say, “yeah this album may have been rough, but here is one for the long time fans who were with me back when all my songs had sped up soul samples.” For the Black Keys, after an album filly with trippy psychedelic sounds and lengthy guitar solos (the longest coming at the end of the second to last song In Our Prime), it ends with a song for those who jumped on the band’s bandwagon on the previous three albums as Gotta Get Away is their most Creedence sounding song yet. Turn Blue may not be the band’s best (and it certainly will not be its most successful), but it is definitely an album where you cannot wait to hear where the band goes next. Keep in mind Achtung Baby and Load were followed up by ever weirder Zooropa and Reload. Unfortunately both of those were followed by Pop and St. Anger.

Song to Download - Weight of Love

Turn Blue gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.