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©Photo by Danny Clinch
efore the May 13, 2014 release of
Turn Blue, the Black Keys’ eighth
studio album, the Ohio-borne duo
of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney
released a tour itinerary. It was
one befitting of one of the biggest
rock bands in the country—a band
that wins Grammy Awards and
appears on gossip sites such as
TMZ mocking Justin Bieber—and
included stops at most of our nation’s
famous basketball arenas.
Turn Blue, however, is not an
album built for arenas.
It’s still the Black Keys, in that
this is still a Midwestern band
steeped in meaty heartland blues.
Only this is the Black Keys turned
down to…heartbroken. “Dance
all night because people they
don’t want to be lonely,” a clearly
wounded-sounding Auerbach
sings on album opener “Weight
of Love.” But where the band is
heading certainly isn’t straight
to the dancefloor. The nearly
seven-minute cut could well be
the soundtrack to a film whose
antihero is the boy sitting alone
on the top bleacher in the gymnasium.
Guitar solos weep, and then
fade, and starlight atmospheres
are mellow, as if they’re reflecting
off of a disco-ball moving in slow
motion.
This—and the album itself—is
more Pink Floyd than the sweaty
bar band obsessed with the Mississippi
blues that the Black Keys
once were. It’s somber, quite pretty,
and will no doubt confuse some
listeners that preferred the ease
with which the band punched the
accelerator and found a hook on
its prior two efforts. The song
isn’t an outlier, it’s the Turn Blue
pacesetter, and only the eleventh
and final track truly deviates
from the tone.
Of course, the Black Keys
never exactly were a band operating
with blinders on. If it’s
big choruses and swoony ballads
you’re after, Kings of Leon
are committed to working,
working, working, and working
that formula to death. While
the Black Keys are still billed
as a duo, producer/chameleon
Danger Mouse is now more or
less a member of the group.
He pulls triple duty as co-writer,
co-producer, and player on
nearly each one of these cuts,
and the middle-of-the-night
comedown he works in his
project the Broken Bells seeps
its way into Turn Blue.
Only the Black Keys take a
more organic, soulful approach.
One would be hard-pressed to
find any sort of review or preview
of Turn Blue that doesn’t
reference Smokey Robinson.
Auerbach’s voice has never
been so pliable. Guitars bend,
effects get trippy, and there’s
a hint of gospel on “Waiting on
Words.” “In Time” mixes in even
more odd turns. A dirty, loungey
horn section punctuates
the beat, handclaps are more
forceful than communal, and
demented hits on the keyboard
seem to arrive without warning.
Auerbach, it seems, learned
much from his time working
with Dr. John.
While the Black Keys
proved on 2011’s smash El
Camino that they weren’t going
to stick to one genre, the
album moved through garage
and glammy twists with exuberance.
On Turn Blue, it’s attention
to detail that’s paramount.
Characters mull over dead but
not-forgotten relationships, as
the album is a document of defeated
emotional fallout rather
than drama. (For those interested
in such tidbits, the effort
is said to have sprung from the
dissolution of Auerbach’s marriage.)
It’s grim, even when the
band flashes some rock grit.
“It’s Up to You Now” is full of
sludgy explosions reminiscent
of early 70s metal, the song
constantly exploding on itself.
The keyboard is sprightly on
“10 Lovers,” but the guitars are
turned down, clearly not ready
to match the mood.
Ultimately, the songs that
pack that most life feel less
inspired. The organ brims
throughout “Fever,” but in the
larger context of Turn Blue,
the brightness is false. Compounding
matters, the Black
Keys were never poets, and the
open space between the beats
doesn’t do the band any favors.
“Gotta Get Away” is cute,
but tacked on at the end, it’s
a throwaway, a hit-the-road
breakup anthem that largely
feels like a roll with an old
fling—in this case, straight-up
blues-rock.
The Black Keys
Turn Blue
Nonesuch, LP or CD
The surprise is that the Black
Keys are pretty adept at wallowing,
which pays off for those in
the mood for a breakup record.
The title track is a mini-orchestra
in its own right, a time-shifting
journey of wormy synths, redemptive
keyboards, call-andresponse
backing choir, and circular
guitar melody that’s caught
in a descendant loop. “Bullet in
the Brain” finds some spring in a
ripped-from-the-gutters bass line,
and “Year in Review” pairs rattlesnake
rhythms with Italian choral
samples fit for a eulogy.
“Why you always wanna love
the ones who hurt you” Auerbach
asks at the song’s start,
and while the guitars find a bit of
room to soar, the effect is more
Bond soundtrack than arena
rocker. As for the question Auerbach
asks, Turn Blue doesn’t really
present any answers but lets
the Black Keys thrive as sonic
explorers rather than deep thinkers.
—Todd Martens
62 TONE AUDIO NO.64
July 2014 63