The first thing to say about ‘Turn Blue’, the Black Keys’ eighth studio record, is that it sounds gorgeous. It’s one to drink in slowly, letting each rolling beat, lethargic solo or scuzzy bass note do its thing.
Of course, that shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Here, as they were on ‘Brothers’ and their breakout smash ‘El Camino’, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, now noted producers in their own right, are joined by Brian 'Danger Mouse' Burton, who along with adding his technical nous has also pitched in again on the songwriting front.
His fingerprints are all over the retro-soul low end, with more than one moment recalling the recent Broken Bells effort, ‘After The Disco’, but the Black Keys resolutely refuse to abandon their core: Auerbach’s guitar and Carney’s drums. The gospel backing vocals, keys and swirling strings are extensions of their sound, not new tricks to paper old cracks.
If there is more of a psychedelic twist here - see Bullet In The Brain, In Our Prime or Waiting On Words - then it’s balanced out by equal measures of lounge soul, with Year In Review and the title track providing the comedown to the dancefloor imperatives of ‘El Camino’. It’s Up To You Now and the giddy closer, Gotta Get Away, meanwhile, deliver the riffs.
Auerbach’s vocals are deeply effective in the album’s more reflective moments, his falsetto helping the Keys to inhabit their surroundings and offering a new side to his performance. The seven minute opener, Weight Of Love, is a slow burn affair quite unlike the band’s modus operandi, but amid the Floyd swirls and increasingly indulgent guitar solos we get a glimpse into his post-divorce mind: “Don't give yourself away to the weight of love."
This is an album unlikely to please the purists, or those after a short, sharp burst of filthy blues, but it’s one that shows the Black Keys as a band willing to experiment in the shadow of their own success. It’s sometimes a little long in getting to the point, but these are yarns worth sitting through.
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