Disc review | The Black Keys have seemed like a parody of themselves, but now it surprises

Rock

The Black Keys: Ohio Players

★★★★

Miracles is happening.

I never thought I would be able to say that The Black Keys duo's twelfth album is the most luminous music the band has made in their career.

On their first albums, the duo that mostly sounded like the successors to The White Stripes has for the last decade seemed like an increasingly boring parody of itself.

Guitarist-singer by Dan Auerbach and the drummer Patrick Carney formed by the duo has put together a confident, formally valid, but boring garage blues album every other year on average.

All of this after a routine club squeeze Ohio Players take and surprise all the more tenaciously.

There has been no shortage of ideas.

Paper Crown -the ambitious idea of ​​the song combines organic street funk, electric blues and the Three 6 Mafia rap group Juicy J,'s rapping in the spirit of hip-hop at the beginning of the millennium might look like fusion for fusion's sake on paper.

Auditory perception forces you to check your own prior expectations. The song is indeed the most swinging and liberated amalgam connecting different eras of black music to male memory!

Fusion-pop superhero Beck is involved in some kind of role in more than half of the songs on the album. His presence and creativity have given the record a lot.

Exciting hat trick also happens Candy And Her Friends in a song featuring the Memphis hip-hop pioneer By Lil Noid during the visit, melancholic and sleepy Americana suddenly melts like ice cream in the heat into dark deep southern horrorcore.

Best of all, nothing sounds like a lecture about how all pop music is related, but like going into the studio to experiment and have fun, without pressure or outside critics.

Another superstar guest on the album by Noel Gallagher the contribution is more modest than Beck's.

In addition to the background vocal parts, which remain a curiosity, Gallagher's guitar carries a pop piece that he also partially wrote On The Gamewhose calm melodic flow rises like daylight after a long night.

This is what Gallagher knows: the song's atmosphere is strong and the chorus sticks in your head like a sahti in Lahti market.

The album the internal dramaturgy also works.

Before and after hip hop pieces majestic Beautiful People (Stay High) and psychedelic rock Live Till I Die sound as if a super-composition consisting of members of Primal Scream and Happy Mondays has taken over the stage of the Hacienda club without warning, where someone has left an assortment of organic instruments.

An interpretation faithful to the original arrangement, showing strong affection for the song of William Bell from the 1968 soul ballad I Forget To Be Your Lover on the other hand, proves that you don't always need hat tricks to leave a lasting impression.

Ohio Players is sunshine packed into audio format, an entertaining and hopeful work at the same time.

Hopeful in the sense that even though middle age can sometimes be grueling and tiring… sometimes it still kicks and sparkles.