- The Black Keys: El Camino (Nonesuch Records) Rating: 9 (out of 10)
The Black Keys have long been known for their fuzzedout garage band sound. They've experimented and distorted their songs while maintaining a full speed ahead approach. This has worked well for them but was keeping their music in the garage.
The last two albums, Attack and Release and 2010's Brothers, have moved them closer to the house but now with their latest album, El Camino, the band has taken over the living room and is blasting out of the stereo.
Joining forces with Danger Mouse as the producer has resulted in their most mainstream album to date and they have transitioned without giving up their unique sound. Eleven tracks fill the collection with powerhouse rock that grabs you from the brilliant opening number, "Lonely Boy," and doesn't let go until the final chords of "Mind Eraser."
Dan Auerbach enjoys a number of different styles with his guitar playing on El Camino, like the swamp boogie feel of "Gold on the Ceiling" to the back porch acoustic intro of "Little Black Submarines" before it kicks off into a howling tempo. Behind him is the ever steady drumming of Patrick Carney, who never misses a beat.
The Black Keys have been steadily growing in popularity and this album should propel them into a whole new league.
- Kate Bush: 50 Words for Snow (Noble & Brite Records) Rating: 9 (out of 10)
At my iTunes digital dinner table Kate Bush is seated unceremoniously between Kasabian and Katy Perry but the material on her new album is completely unconcerned with current pop trends.
The brilliant, singular 50 Words for Snow has as much to do with Schubert Lieder or Elizabethan art song as anything being put out today.
Bush uses snow and winter landscapes as a thematic background for much of this Christmas record that never comes close to mentioning Santa.
Guest vocalists helping out on the project include Bush's teenage son Bertie (Albert McIntosh) on the opening track "Snowflake," tenor and counter tenor Stefan Roberts and Michael Wood (on the otherworldly "Lake Tahoe"), Andy Fairweather Low ("Wild Man") and Elton John ("Snowed In At Wheeler Street"). Beautifully done.
