Glorious Noise
The Black Keys reconnect with the blues that first inspired them, resulting in some of their most savage and satisfying music. Plus, April + VISTA offer haunted torch songs.
The Black Keys - Peaches!
The Black Keys have fallen on hard times. A decade and a half removed from the world-conquering era of “Lonely Boy” and “Gold on the Ceiling,” the Akron-based duo keeps reliably putting out records despite their guitar-based sound being largely out of fashion. They announced a big arena tour and then, embarrassingly, had to scrap it due to paltry ticket sales. They released a solid album (Ohio Players) and a lousy one (No Rain, No Flowers), both commercial disappointments. To top it off, singer and guitarist Dan Auerbach lost his father.
Some people were born to sing the blues, and that’s exactly what Auerbach and his longtime collaborator, drummer Patrick Carney, do on their new album Peaches! Drawing from old blues and R&B covers— curated to focus on regional hits and relative obscurities— the new album is a back-to-basics move in the very best sense: it finds the band reconnecting with the music that first inspired them, and with the raw and scuzzy spirit that made their own early records so thrilling. To call them reinvigorated may actually undersell the power of Peaches! This is as savage and as locked-in as The Black Keys have ever sounded on record.
To some extent, the new record feels like fan service to the listeners who have been rolling with the Keys since the very beginning, and who feel like the band lost some of their primal, unvarnished appeal just after the release of Rubber Factory in 2004. Recorded with a small combo of backing musicians— among them multi-instrumentalist Jimbo Mathis and, on two cuts, a bar band horn section— Auerbach and Carney slash, rip, and thump through some songs they know by heart. The sound is appealingly thick and fuzzy, with Auerbach’s voice fading in and out of the din. Nothing sounds overdubbed, autotuned, or like it took more than one or two takes.
It’s a tremendous showcase for the band’s chemistry and feel, celebrating the textures of hand-played instruments and the hypnotic grooves of musicians who are happy to be in the same room together, making ruckus without relent. Indeed, it’s the sense of groove that makes the album so irresistible: opener “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire” takes a few seconds to build steam, then all of a sudden it’s barreling like a runaway train, the horn section just barely holding on for the ride. With its stabs or organ, “Stop Arguing Over Me” recalls the wild, careening sound of Dylan’s electric era; even when things slow down a bit, as they do on “It’s a Dream,” there’s still a loping, locomotive energy, with Auerbach’s slide guitar licks sounding like mighty wheels that just keep chugging forward. A couple of songs in the album’s back half— “You Got to Lose” and “She Does it Right”— couple the soulful R&B finesse of the Brothers era with the piledriving momentum of the earliest, most primitive Black Keys.
Reviewing the album for Pitchfork, Grayson Haver Currin avers that Peaches! is “weirdly free of feeling.” Anyone hoping for Auerbach and Carney to transmute their grief or their recent disappointments into songs of howling catharsis may indeed be disappointed: Peaches! never sounds like an exorcism. But the blues have never been entirely about despair; just as crucial is the sense of joy and release that come from making music, even amidst desperate times. That’s the animating spirit behind this record: The Black Keys have seemed a little lost of late, but here they find themselves again through surrender to the music they love. It’s more than enough to make this an essential Black Keys record.
My rating: 8 out of 10.
April + VISTA - Traditional Noise
If The Black Keys’ record sounds delightfully unfussed over, the debut full-length from April + VISTA is practically its opposite— a record of beguiling beauty, enchanting precisely for its well-considered compositions and its expert evocation of ambiance and mood.
The duo hails from DC. April George is the singer and songwriter, a soulful chanteuse who specializes in the smeared-lipstick romance of smoky jazz balladry and noir-ish torch songs. VISTA is the pseudonym for Matthew Thompson, the producer and composer who takes April’s familiar forms and runs them through a gauntlet of orchestrations, sound effects, and psychedelia. They’ve been making music together for a while now, but Traditional Noise serves as an announcement that they’ve arrived: even at just over half an hour, the album feels saturated with beauty, stuffed on the sublime.
Though their music abounds with reference points, it’s ultimately difficult to pin down. For the way it colors sadsack melodies with hip-hop beats, rock and roll instrumentation and sumptuous swells of strings, its closest antecedent might be Dummy, the similarly doomed and lovely debut from Portishead. A profile in Stereogum name checks Radiohead’s glimmering A Moon Shaped Pool, another helpful touchstone, though Johnny Greenwood’s opulent Phantom Thread score feels just as germane.
Traditional Noise is sophisticated and layered, but that doesn’t mean it lacks visceral appeal. Following a brief introduction, “Very Bad News” locks into a tough groove, its fat bass lines and cavernous drums adorned with swooning strings. Rock and roll energy shows up again on the breakneck “Bless My Heart,” while “Love Unspent” takes up the sultriness of a simmering R&B slow jam.
Just as memorable are the songs that feel more delicate. “Two Evergreens” weaves rickety piano with the soft rustle of acoustic guitar strings. “Standing in Place” is more beat-driven, yet George addresses it with the same gentle touch. “Grotto” takes a little from both columns: what begins as a moody ballad descends into a madness of jittery percussion.
George’s lyrics are similarly thoughtful, with many of the songs considering themes of identity and self-discovery— often presented as dialogues with the singer’s childhood self or even with her ancestors. This angle is conceptually rich and emotionally evocative, much like Traditional Noise itself. It makes for a singularly arresting record, tethered to familiar sounds but forging an identity all its own.
My rating: 8 out of 10.
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