Magic Potion
The Age
Friday October 6, 2006
CD REVIEW: Magic Potion, The Black Keys (Nonesuch/Modular), ***?
From the down and dirty hard urban blues of 2003's breakthrough Thickfreakness to the next year's hot and sweaty great leap forward Rubber Factory the latest Black Keys effort keeps the grit grinding on opening track Just Got to Be and the next one, Your Touch, but after that it's a different bucket of bolts. You're The One has the brightest tone of any Dan Auerbach guitar riff yet, and for most of the 11 tracks here the fuzz is all but shaved clean off, with minimal overdubs and scant effects. His sound and style moves into vintage '60s English blues-rock; lashings of Yardbirds-era Clapton, some T. S. McPhee and Groundhogs, Jimmy Page circa Led I on Just a Little Heat, a delicious Hendrix take on Goodbye Babylon. Pat Carney's pounding beat slows way, way down and Auerbach indulges in some of the sweetest, cleanest playing and singing we've yet heard from this magnificent musician. After the sultry Ohio heat it seems the boys are looking for a new climate. The drums-guitar duo format is so limited; Jack White conceded as much with his piano focus on much of the last White Stripes effort. Much of Auerbach's playing here is sublime but the pair's energy to move forward seems missing. -- JEFF GLORFELD
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