The Black Keys
Rubber Factory

THE REVIEW

Akron, Ohio. Known mostly as the rubber capital, it surely can't be considered a fun place. According to my friend Pietro, who spent a year there, it's simply a "good place to die forgotten." Fortunately, the two guys in question (Dan and Patrick) chose to form a band and won't die forgotten, at least as far as I'm concerned.
Reaching their third effort, the Black Keys finally achieve a stylistic and compositional coherence that makes this Rubber Factory their best work so far. And one of the best rock albums of the year, in my humble opinion.

Being a duo and playing low-fidelity blues might immediately make one think of two emulators of the much-acclaimed White Stripes. In broad terms, the bands resemble each other, but the blues of the Black Keys is more visceral, and less "modern," more southern and less metropolitan than that of the Stripes. Their musical reference is not the Detroit sound, but the original blues. John Lee Hooker instead of Fred "Sonic" Smith, to be clear.
A definite strength of the combo is Dan's rich and drawling voice, a real pleasure for the ears, capable at times of lulling you, as in the splendid porch blues The Lengths, or attacking the listener, as in the brisk funk-blues 10 A.M. Automatic. The surprising thing is how their music, albeit anything but innovative, feels as fresh as a Hall's Mento Liptus, just to reiterate the fact that many can drink from the blues' fountain, but few manage to bring along some of that sacred nectar, giving new vigor to a plant often withered. Listen to believe with Just Couldn't Tie Me Down, complete with handclaps, Keep Me, or The Desperate Man, the latter with vague garage reminiscences. The fact that it was recorded in a real abandoned rubber factory only adds charm and historical coherence to an album poor in resources but full of sincere passion for music.
Forget Toe Rag Studios!