The Black Keys - Brothers (2010) [Nonesuch] // Grade: B

The Black Keys don’t make bad albums. They make “holy shit” albums and “pretty good” albums and “hey, that’s not half bad” albums, but never anything terrible enough to spawn legitimate backlash. They’re a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race band, workhorses in the truest Ohio corn-bred sense, and if they ever feel like parodies of themselves—well, it happens. Years-honed and distinctive sounds risk a little repetition. At least they’re not cartoons, you know. At least they’re not, like, the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Besides, what they repeat, they repeat knowingly. The latest since 2008′s (“pretty good”) Danger Mouse-produced Attack & Release—not to mention a bevy of side-work, including Damon Dash’s Blakroc—Brothers feels refreshed to the max, the duo Keys finding their way back to Rubber Factory (“holy shit”) with a few new tricks up their sleeves. It’s loose and humid, a bunch of scuzzy stoked blues-rock jams that love a roadside riff just as much as they do a glammed-out falsetto. “Everlasting Light” may be “Planet Queen” for the good ol’ boys, but “Howlin’ For You” is precisely the sort of swamp-stomp that inspires True Blood episode titles, then carries out the final credits. Just you wait; Alan Ball’s gonna love this.

And what’s not to love? Aside from the length—maybe that’s not to love. Maybe so much riffing gets a little laborious over 15 songs, and maybe it’s too heavy on the sloppy Delta ballads. But maybe that’s interesting, too; Brothers is exciting in very measured doses, and it (almost) always keeps you hotly anticipating the next explosion. And anyway, it’s still way to right of “not half bad”. “Holy shit”, not quite—but if the Keys carry this refreshed vibe through another album, they might get real close.

- Rue Sauvage