This will actually be the last installment of this series of posts. See the Hiatus Over Post for Details.
14: The Black Keys
Album: Brothers
Genre: Hard Blues
Label: Nonesuch
The first problem I’ve encountered trying to write about Brothers is simply the popularity of The Black Keys. Damn. Since the Hard Blues duo’s formation in 2001 the band has been gathering a steady head of steam, which seems to have come to a head last year with the release of Brothers, their sixth album. But first, I’m going to get something out of the way before we get to far into this: The Black Keys and The White Stripes are frequently compared and nothing like each other. They are frequently compared because they are both color-coded Hard Blues bands that are two-pieces. That being said, The White Stripes is Jack White with a backing band of one. The Black Keys are duo, which means, in this case, that they are two musicians playing WITH each other, not one musician playing OVER the other. Glad we got that out of the way. Now that The White Stripes have split, maybe I’ll hear less of this argument. On to Brothers.
The Black Keys do this thing where every few years they release a really good album and then tour. Sound familiar? That’s because that’s the formula lots of good bands follow. However, with the Black Keys, the difference is that those really good albums that get released every few years is EVERY album they’ve released since Thickfreakness. That was their second album. In 2003. Yes indeed. Brothers manages to prove for the sixth time that Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney can, and do, produce fantastic Hard Blues based Rock and Roll. But this time around things are a bit different.
The sound on Brothers is a bit… dare I say… groovier than on previous records. The Black Keys have always been good riff miners, but on this record the urge to groove takes over and we’ve got tracks like “Everlasting Light” which flows with a foot tappin’, head bobbin’, hand clappin’ motion and pretty soon, you too, will be groovin’ in your station wagon. “Everlasting Light” gets Brothers off to a good start, but the second track is my favorite. You’ll never hear a Blues musician sing about how the marriage is good and Dan Auerbach’s tales of womanly woe are particularly articulate on “Next Girl” a story of a beautiful girl who Auerbach can’t love because she can’t love herself, which features the catchy chorus of “My next girl/will be nothing like my ex-girl/I made mistakes back then/I’ll never do it again.”
I do find it ironic though that this song and the albums leading single, “Tighten Up” are placed right next to each other when in “Next Girl” Auerbach is signing “I wanted love/but not for myself/but for the girl/so she could love herself” is immediately followed by “Tighten Up’s” now famous opening lines of “I wanted love/I needed love/most of all/most of all.” “Tighten Up” is a good song but it doesn’t really sound like proper Black Keys to me. Then again, my feelings in that department are a little muddled because Brothers an example of The Black Keys doing a pop album (Pop the Structure not Pop the Genre.) The production is neatly nestled in a place between the cleaner sounds of Attack & Release and the rawer, harder feeling of Rubber Factory. But it’s that rawness that I miss. Rubber Factory was so fantastic because it was recorded in an actual rubber factory and it was mean. It could kick your ass. Brothers, while being a bit fuzzier than Attack & Release, sounds like The Black Keys being nice and I don’t know how I feel about that.
It does give way to some really lovely moments though, like the heartfelt “Unknown Brother,” in which Auerbach mourns the loss of a brother he never knew over some of the most sincere sounding guitars in recent memory. It’s a bit of a tearjerker. Look. I gotta rap this up. I really like this album. That should be clear enough: it’s on this list. If you like the Black Keys, you’ll like this. And be ready for the next few years when they release their next album and tour. Cause it will be good. Cheers.
Top Tracks: “Everlasting Light,” “Next Girl,” & “Unknown Brother”
13: Liars
Album: Sisterworld
Genre: Experimental Rock
Label: Mute
Sinister. That is the first word that comes to mind in describing Sisterworld, Liars impeccable fifth album. There’s a prolonged sense of dread enshrouding this record, if not the band itself. This is something that Liars have cultivated overtime, since their days as an angular Dance Punk unit in the vein of Gang Of Four without the politics. But that was their first LP and that was when things were normal. Since then, Liars have cavorted with witches on their sophomore record, explored spacious thought and sound with their critically lauded Drum’s Not Dead and recorded a self-titled pop album. Every time you think you can pin their sound down, they change, almost like they’re eluding you. The thing that remains consistent though is the ominous atmosphere. Almost everything Liars have recorded has an overtone of creepiness. Not B-movie creeps either, but surreal, Lynchian horror, the kind that is at one time thoroughly unsettling and strangely mesmerizing. Sisterworld is the culmination of that atmosphere, giving us a record of shadowy corridors and fantastic illusions.
At first, you feel like you’re in a dream. Like you’re floating away. The album opens with beautifully rising vocal harmonies that lead into front man Angus Andrew’s almost slurred laments “I found her/with my scissor/ this heart fell/ to the ground.” He continues as the cello and bass come in: “I’m supposed to save you now/but my hands are flipping out.” The music and voices swells as he declares, “I’m a coward/in a self-built army/I leave this blood to dry.” Without warning, there’s a sound like a snap and the full band blasts in with a burst Noise Rock cacophony that whips up like a snare trap. The supposed dream turns into a nightmare within the blink of an eye. And from here on out you’re lost in the sea of creeping darkness weaving it’s way through the forest.
Liars is a trio these days, but they play the Radiohead card of being the kind of band where the individual members do not necessarily fill specific rolls but rather contribute as needed. And Sisterworld is an excellent album for it. An effective mixture of the Ambient Rock of Drum’s Not Dead and the heavier Noise experiments of They Were Wrong, So We Drowned, with hints of the big riffs pioneered on Self-Titled, Sisterworld is perhaps Liars most eclectic outing to date and without a doubt my favorite. Because it’s creepy. But we know that at this point. No other Liars album quite captures the skincrawling eeriness of tracks like “No Barrier Fun” with it’s seasick cello and haunting heartbeat, or the slithering “Drip” which is an example of how Liars can be frightening by fooling you into believing that they aren’t there at all, while, in your bloodstream, they’re growing.
But some of the songs boast outright terror. The two best examples being the opening cut “Scissor” which I described in detail in the second paragraph and the psychotic fugue of “Scarecrows On A Killer Slant” the reverbed and delayed guitars of which make you feel dizzy while Angus Andrew illustrates a horror scene in which bums and cretins are stood against a wall and murdered. It’s kind of overwhelming, like being trapped in a fever dream, but that’s what they want. I realize that this all sounds very unpleasant, but you must bear with me. This album is actually quite gorgeous. And, as I mentioned before, it’s like a David Lynch film in that it is at one time unsettling and mesmerizing. Liars are capable of creating great beauty out of the twisted.
After the big sounds and hyper production of Liars self-titled album, Sisterworld comes off as a bit smaller at times, but the production doesn’t sound quite as over the top as before. Still sounds clean though and that’s a benefit to tracks like “No Barrier Fun.” And despite no huge sounds found on songs like “Plaster Casts Of Everything” from Self-Titled, Liars do achieve sweeping grandiosity on the most epic song on Sisterworld, the penultimate track “Goodnight Everything” which sounds like the band is playing the anthem of watching the sun set on the earth for the last time, even throwing a horn section into the mix along with the crashing drums and world ending guitars.
So in closing, if you’re a fan of Experimental Rock, dreadful ambience and spikes of Noise Rock existentialism, then I assure you that you will enjoy Liars’ Sisterworld. Just don’t get lost there; you might not be able to come back.
Top Tracks: “Scissor,” “No Barrier Fun” & “Goodnight Everything”
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