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Like many {couples} in a long-term relationship, the Black Keys determined to look outdoors their union for inspiration when it got here time to report Ohio Gamers, the band’s twelfth album. No strangers to extracurricular collaborations—guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach virtually lives at his Simple Eye Sound, producing information for Robert Finley, Hermanos Gutiérrez, Marcus King, Early James, and Shannon and the Clams in the previous couple of years—the band hasn’t introduced further musicians into the studio since reviving their partnership in 2019 with “Let’s Rock”, a back-to-basics platter that appeared to reject the psychedelic haze engulfing 2014’s Flip Blue.
Flip Blue, like so lots of the albums the Black Keys launched on Nonesuch between 2008 and 2014, was co-produced by Hazard Mouse, a collaborator who helped Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney transfer far past the band’s dirty garage-blues roots. After working with Hazard Mouse, the Black Keys prized manufacturing—the tactical, bodily sound of a report—as a lot because the tune itself, an aesthetic that carries by means of to Ohio Gamers. Pointedly avoiding the expansive exploration of their Obama-era albums, the Black Keys as an alternative depend on the bag of methods they’ve developed over their profession intent on creating attention-grabbing juxtapositions from acquainted sounds.
Sonically talking, there’s nothing about Ohio Gamers that feels sudden. It’s a bustling concoction of fuzz-speckled riffs, funky rhythms, candy harmonies, tart hooks, and spectral keyboards, the sorts of refurbished retro-rock that aren’t solely the band’s inventory in commerce however Auerbach’s signature as a producer. Even the presence of rappers Lil Noid and Juicy J on “Sweet and Her Buddies” and “Paper Crown” recollects Blakroc, the duo’s 2009 tour into rap-rock, but the truth that Black Keys have explicitly carved area for hip-hop on Ohio Gamers goes a good distance in explaining why the album doesn’t really feel like a retread. As a substitute of siloing their pursuits, the group synthesizes them, making a report that feels energetic, recent, and colourful.
To that finish, Beck is the essential collaborator on Ohio Gamers. Half of the album’s fourteen songs bear a Beck co-writing credit score and his presence is felt all through, whether or not it’s his lead vocals on “Paper Crown” or how the very sound of the report is pitched midway between the dense collage of Odelay and the colourful neo-soul of Midnite Vultures. The Black Keys could comply with Beck’s genre-bending lead—the lithe “Sweet and Her Buddies” bears his imprint but it surely’s the one tune Auerbach and Carney wrote on their very own—however they by no means give the impression of an ironic distance. There’s a cause why a luxurious cowl of William Bell’s slow-burning Stax traditional “I Forgot to Be Your Lover” resides smack dab in the course of Ohio Gamers: Beneath all the trendy clamor, the Black Keys stay anchored in traditional soul.
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