Relative to the garage-rock outfits with whom they were compared to in the first part of this decade, the Black Keys have more or less stuck with their thing: austerely nostalgic, drums-and-guitar-in-a-dying-industrial-city blues-rock. Singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney have managed to forge a career and five albums out of variations-on-a-theme riffs and stripped-for-parts grooves, outliving almost all of those peers. They lack the audacity of Jack White (in fact, their blues-rock extends more from Midwestern modesty than from self-aware showboating), and the Reigning Sound's Greg Cartwright has a stronger melodic sensibility and more potent lyrical venom. Their limited range, however, stands in inverse proportion to their sturdy longevity, which always seemed built into their conceptual underpinning, as if the sheer quantity of songs legitimizes their Spartan approach.
But last year's Attack & Release saw the Black Keys' resolve weakening: Auerbach and Carney collaborated with Danger Mouse and wrangled additional players-- including Jessica Lea Mayfield and Carney's uncle Ralph. That the additions of a high-profile producer and programmed beats only augmented rather than expanded their sound was both a bit comical and strangely commendable. You take the Keys out of their basement studio, but you can't take the basement studio out of the Keys. Now Auerbach has made a solo album, and in retrospect, this turn of events seems inevitable: Ostensibly he wanted to escape even momentarily his band's self-imposed restrictions and give vent to his wildest ideas, like having a bass player.
Like Attack & Release, Keep It Hid takes only a few baby steps up the basement stairs. There are plenty of new song shapes and sound textures here, from the softly strummed opener "Trouble Weighs a Ton" to the brief din of "Because I Should" to the Smithsy guitar on "Heartbroken, in Disrepair". A sacred organ drenches "Real Desire" like profane sweat, and "Whispered Words (Pretty Lies)" struts on a Stax rhythm section and a nifty descending melody. "When the Night Comes" ends Side 1 on a quiet note, with soft keyboards and piano decorating some of Auerbach's most tender lyrics to date. Side 2 loses some of Side 1's urgency, as "Mean Monsoon" and especially "When I Left the Room" sound uncharacteristically unfocused.
Nothing here, however, would sound at all out of place if "Black Keys" were written on the jewel case spine. Whether Auerbach should be criticized or credited for his consistency could be debated, but the approach, the mission, and the music here all sound pretty close to what we've heard before from his day-job band. As a Black Keys album, Keep It Hid sounds less detached and distracted than the Danger Mouse collaboration, but lacks the thickfreak sound of their earliest releases and the sharp songwriting of Rubber Factory. Auerbach has written horndog riffs like "I Want Some More" and "Street Walkin'" many times before, and neither is the best of his lot. And no offense to the dependable drumming of Bob Cesare, but these songs lack Carney's crafty, unhinged beats, which work overtime to fill in Keys' songs as much as possible.
The biggest change here might be Auerbach himself, whose vocals have loosened up somewhat since The Big Come Up in 2002. On "Whispered Words (Pretty Lies)" and "My Last Mistake" he actually sounds indistinguishable from John Fogerty-- and the swampy drumbeat on the latter suggests he's aware of it. Rather than put him at the head of a small studio band like this, one wonders how he would sound either as a player in a more democratic unit (much like White in the Raconteurs) or backed by a pre-existing group like Drive-By Truckers, where he might have to work outside of himself to adapt to a communal sound. As it is, the more Auerbach changes things, the more they stay the same.
