Album of the week: The Black Keys - El Camino

WITH the confirmed split of The White Stripes, anyone lacking a colour-referencing Led Zeppelin-loving power duo in their lives might want to channel their affections towards The Black Keys, who have even relocated from their native Ohio to Jack White’s adopted home city of Nashville in the past year, the better to pursue their career.

Many have already made the jump from White to Black. While Jack and Meg’s charisma and chemistry courted the lion’s share of the attention, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney were doggedly moving up the outside lane, selling out ever larger shows. When they return to the UK in February, they will be playing three nights at Alexandra Palace in London. Who knew that this pair would be the ones to outlive all their garage rock peers and make it big?

Last year’s million-selling sixth album, Brothers, was the game changer for the duo, catapulting them into a world of Grammy wins, Billboard hits and Twilight soundtracks. How they have chosen to respond to their commercial breakthrough is evident by the time they hit the first big, catchy chorus of El Camino. The Black Keys have embraced their newfound status by delivering their most upbeat, accessible album to date.

This supremely confident overture to the mainstream didn’t come without blood, sweat and reservations. Singer/guitarist Auerbach has credited the momentum of the album partly to the nerves and pressure he was feeling about his band’s burgeoning profile and partly to a deliberate drive to create pacey, dynamic songs which would come over better live in their new arena habitat than the bluesy slowburns of old.

But these guys knew exactly what they were doing when they called in Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton – the producer who serviced their biggest hit to date – not just to produce the album, but to co-write all the songs. Burton is a man who can be trusted when it comes to pop music, and his involvement here is pivotal in The Black Keys’ elevation from the eight-track grungey garage duo of their 2002 debut The Big Come Up to the gleaming goodtime rock’n’roll outfit of El Camino.

Their engine still runs on the blues – if they’re not waiting for their woman, they are walking out on her – but El Camino is fitted out with a modern rock’n’roll chassis, spraypainted with glam, pop, funk and soul flourishes. Lead single and opening salvo Lonely Boy sets the standard with a classic motoring beat, revved-up guitar, complementary organ backing and Auerbach’s soulful, rootsy vocals, relating his recurring girl trouble with something close to relish.

They sound equally liberated on the punchy but poppy indie garage track Dead And Gone, with its reverberating guitar twang and siren-like backing vocals, and the 21st-century glam rock of Gold On The Ceiling which, with its glitzy synths and handclaps, sounds like Goldfrapp for boys.

After this hi-octane opening, they take a brief acoustic breather with the pure Zeppelin pastiche of Little Black Submarine, before the track moves up several gears for its pleasingly epic finale with some of the most blistering guitar work on the album.

Money Maker is as unapologetically retro as its title suggests, with the swagger of The Kills if they wrote more fully realised songs. And used a talk box. The fuzzy alternative blues rock of Run Right Back is cut from the same cloth as Queens of the Stone Age’s No One Knows and radiates a playful irreverence in its pithy rhyming couplets. When Auerbach can capture the essence of his tormentor with the line “finest exterior, she’s so superior”, need he say any more?

Sister is sleek, streamlined, soulful and very satisfying with some nicely deployed falsetto and one of the most memorable choruses on the album. They react to this with the bluesy bruiser Hell Of A Season, which teams an economical backing with an alluring melody and reggae-tinged breakdown, then continue their home run with Stop Stop, which fits a pop production to 1960s garage psych as effectively as, say, Plan B has excavated old-school soul crooning. Any of these songs could make a splash as a single.

The Black Keys wouldn’t claim to be original or innovative but they still sound fresh and invigorated. Only closing track Mind Eraser comes over as a hoary, retrograde exercise, calling to mind Free and Santana rather than the Keys’ rock peers.

In keeping with the album title, which translates from the Spanish as “the road”, The Black Keys have journeyed to this point through a combination of dedicated touring – a picture of their old tour van adorns the sleeve – and steady, consistent development. Thanks to this easy, accomplished listen, they’ll be picking up even more fans as they continue along the way.

The Black Keys: El Camino

Nonesuch, £12.99

Rating: ****