Keys mellow out and step back with ‘Blue’

The Black Keys

Turn Blue

Grade: B-

The Black Keys are to popular music what barbecue sauce is to a lean piece of meat: They add flavor, depth and an unabashed grittiness to an anemic and often tasteless music scene. Their torrid run with two consecutive platinum albums has created an unlikely success story, injecting the pop music bubble of synthetic and overworked tracks with the rawness of true blues rock. 

That being said, the Ohio duo’s newest album, Turn Blue, is somewhat of a lame horse in comparison to their past work. While The Black Keys are challenging another posthumous release from the King of Pop for the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200, one wonders if this hype comes more from their popularity than the sound produced. 

Yes, The Black Keys are groundbreaking, stellar, out-of-this-pop-music-saturated-world, and yet somehow, they still retain their humble midwestern roots and unpretentious air, which makes them all the more likable. This is all fine and dandy, but frankly, their new album can be described in one word: boring. 

While there were a few lively tracks such as “Weight of Love,” “In Time” and the airtime heavy “Fever,” there is a sort of dull and bland throbbing ad nauseam to the rest of the tracks. To some, the psychedelic mellowness may be a welcome divergence from the spastic energy that coiled in past tracks like “Tighten Up” and the crashing build-up of “Little Black Submarines,” — songs that gave The Black Keys an identity. 

Starting with the most energetic of the highlights, “Weight of Love” trickles onto the speakers and slow musical riffs build layers, culminating in a heavy but nostalgic guitar that introduces the vocals. It’s a mellow beginning, a song that draws the listener into the rest of the album and hits you with the weight of guitar grinds and heaviness. 

Auerbach builds on this with drawling lyrics that warn, “Don’t give yourself away to the weight of love.” While the lyrics lack wittiness, that isn’t what The Black Keys are known for. The song makes up for rather placid lyrics with retro guitar solos and an emphasis on instrumentation rather than vocals. 

“In Time” is another one of the more memorable tracks on the album, in which Auerbach breaks out his classic falsetto vocals that are then bolstered by pumping beats and the omnipresent electric guitar. He trills, “The street is beating you bad/ It’s taken it’s time, it’s taken it’s time, oh/ Oh, where to run?” Carney’s steady drumming provides a dusky, grounding backdrop to this high-pitched edginess. 

The rest of the songs have a sort of placidity that’s marked by monotonous psychedelic riffs and beats. The album could play on repeat in a smoky bar with a puddle green pool table top as the only source of color. It’s a setting that perfectly mirrors the album, an occasional bright spot in a pool of melancholy. 

In a sense, The Black Keys are their own worst enemy, with older songs that can’t be usurped by a rather low-key Turn Blue. Perhaps there’s more to the album’s title than meets the eye, as they turn from an energetic griminess to a sound steeped in blue melancholy.