El Camino

Sealed - Brand new 180 gram triple vinyl housed in a smart box.

Picking up on the '60s soul undercurrent of Brothers, the Black Keys smartly capitalize on their 2010 breakthrough by plunging headfirst into retro-soul on El Camino. Savvy operators that they are, the Black Keys don’t opt for authenticity à la Sharon Jones or Eli 'Paperboy' Reed: they bring Danger Mouse back into the fold, the producer adding texture and glitter to the duo’s clean, lean songwriting. Apart from 'Little Black Submarines', an acoustic number that crashes into Zeppelin heaviosity as it reaches its coda, every one of the 11 songs here clocks in under four minutes, adding up to a lean 38-minute rock & roll rush, an album that’s the polar opposite of the Black Keys’ previous collaboration with Danger Mouse, the hazy 2008 platter Attack & Release. That purposely drifted into detours, whereas El Camino never takes its eye off the main road: it barrels down the highway, a modern motor in its vintage body. Danger Mouse adds glam flair that doesn’t distract from the songs, all so sturdily built they easily accommodate the shellacked layers of cheap organs, fuzz guitars, talk boxes, backing girls, tambourines, foot stomps, and handclaps. Each element harks back to something from the past - there are Motown beats and glam rock guitars - but everything is fractured through a modern prism: the rhythms have swing, but they’re tight enough to illustrate the duo’s allegiance to hip-hop; the gleaming surfaces are postmodern collages, hinting at collective aural memories. All this blurring of eras is in the service of having a hell of a good time. More than any other Black Keys album, El Camino is an outright party, playing like a collection of 11 lost 45 singles, each one having a bigger beat or dirtier hook than the previous side. What’s being said doesn’t matter as much as how it’s said: El Camino is all trash and flash and it’s highly addictive.

		El Camino
A1		Lonely Boy	3:13
A2		Dead And Gone	3:41
A3		Gold On The Ceiling	3:44
A4		Little Black Submarines	4:11
A5		Money Maker	2:57
B1		Run Right Back	3:11
B2		Sister	3:25
B3		Hell Of A Season	3:45
B4		Stop Stop	3:30
B5		Nova Baby	3:27
B6		Mind Eraser	3:15
		Live in Portland, ME. (Part 1)
C1		Howlin' For You
C2		Next Girl
C3		Run Right Back
C4		Same Old Thing
C5		Dead And Gone
C6		Gold On The Ceiling
D1		Thickfreakness
D2		Girl Is On My Mind
D3		I'll Be Your Man/Your Touch
D4		Little Black Submarines
		Live in Portland, ME. (Part 2)
E1		Money Maker
E2		Strange Times
E3		Chop And Change
E4		Nova Baby
E5		Ten Cent Pistol
F1		Tighten Up
F2		Lonely Boy
F3		Everlasting Light
F4		She's Long Gone
F5		I Got Mine