2012 Grammy Award Winner for Best Rock Album, Best Rock Performance "Lonely Boy" & Best Rock Song "Lonely Boy"
Featured in Michael Fremer's Heavy Rotation in the March 2012 Issue of Stereophile!
150 Gram Vinyl, Produced by Danger Mouse, Gatefold Jacket, Bonus CD & 'Giant' Fold-Out Poster!
Features the smash single "Lonely Boy"!
Reviewing The Black Keys' 2010 Top Ten breakthrough album Brothers, Rolling Stone called the duo "a two-man combo with a big-band mind." That description seems downright prophetic now. With the hard-rocking El Camino, The Black Keys' fourth Nonesuch release, guitarist-singer Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney conjure up an exhilarating, stadium-sized sound in collaboration with producer and friend Danger Mouse. El Camino boasts a no-nonsense brilliance: The pace is fast, the mood is upbeat, the choruses unfailingly addictive made for shouting along, preferably in a large, sweaty crowd.
A band already at the top of its game has gotten even better. And The Black Keys have done pretty well so far, with three 2011 Grammy awards for Brothers under their belt, an MTV Video Music Award for "Tighten Up," more than 850,000 copies of Brothers sold in the U.S., and upwards of a million units worldwide, plus innumerable licensing placements in film, TV, and commercials. El Camino features one stand-out track after another, such as first single "Lonely Boy," "Gold on the Ceiling," and the surprising, acoustic-guitar-driven, tempo-shifting "Little Black Submarines."
"This record is more straight ahead rock and roll raw, driving, and back to basics," says Auerbach. As Carney has put it, The Black Keys "respect the past while being in the present," and that formula has made them sound like nothing less than the future of rock and roll. While the largely self-produced Brothers, recorded at the famed Muscle Shoals Studio in Alabama, had a more soul and blues-oriented sound, El Camino often recalls the blitzkrieg-paced British-style rock of the 1960s and '70s, post-Beatles and pre-punk: artists like T-Rex, The Sweet, and Gary Glitter, along with the heavier swing of such bands as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.
The references are there, but the sound is very much contemporary and utterly their own, equally informed by The Black Keys' passion for hip hop and R&B and bolstered by the atmospheric production approach of Danger Mouse (a.k.a. Brian Burton), who was behind the boards for 2008's Attack & Release and collaborated with them on the funky "Tighten Up" for Brothers. As Auerbach notes, "Brian understands all the different kinds of music we're into. He's got really great ideas about melody and song structure. For him it's all about the song." Also rejoining them is consistently innovative mixing engineer Tchad Blake, who Auerbach calls "a genius with audio, a complete wizard."
El Camino came together quickly in an unfettered burst of creativity by the hard-charging pair. They recorded the 11 tracks between tour dates for Brothers at Auerbach's new Easy Eye Studio in Nashville, where he and Carney have now relocated after years of working in their native Akron, Ohio.
In a time of global austerity, The Black Keys work simply and efficiently, with a minimum of tools and a wealth of ideas, to produce the richest, fattest, coolest music around. Upon the release of Brothers in 2010, Britain's Uncut magazine called them "one of the best rock'n'roll bands on the planet," and El Camino, confirms that.
"That thing, El Camino, that snapshot of where singer-guitarist Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney were, is one of the most masterful, upbeat, and outright fun records they've ever made... It's as rock'n'roll as the pair have ever been - a tune like "Sister" qualifies as full-on riff rock. The album's sound, while still raw and distorted in spots, is in general more dynamic and detailed than in the past." - Robert Baird, Stereophile, February 2012 issue
Features:
150 Gram Vinyl
Produced by Danger Mouse & The Black Keys
Mastered by Brian Lucey at Magic Garden Mastering
Includes Limited Time Bonus CD of the Entire Album!
Gatefold Jacket
'Giant' Fold-Out Poster
Selections:
Side A:
1. Lonely Boy
2. Dead And Gone
3. Gold On The Ceiling
4. Little Black Submarines
5. Money Maker
Side B:
1. Run Right Back
2. Sister
3. Hell Of A Season
4. Stop Stop
5. Nova Baby
6. Mind Eraser
Featured in Michael Fremer's Heavy Rotation in the March 2012 Issue of Stereophile!
150 Gram Vinyl, Produced by Danger Mouse, Gatefold Jacket, Bonus CD & 'Giant' Fold-Out Poster!
Features the smash single "Lonely Boy"!
Reviewing The Black Keys' 2010 Top Ten breakthrough album Brothers, Rolling Stone called the duo "a two-man combo with a big-band mind." That description seems downright prophetic now. With the hard-rocking El Camino, The Black Keys' fourth Nonesuch release, guitarist-singer Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney conjure up an exhilarating, stadium-sized sound in collaboration with producer and friend Danger Mouse. El Camino boasts a no-nonsense brilliance: The pace is fast, the mood is upbeat, the choruses unfailingly addictive made for shouting along, preferably in a large, sweaty crowd.
A band already at the top of its game has gotten even better. And The Black Keys have done pretty well so far, with three 2011 Grammy awards for Brothers under their belt, an MTV Video Music Award for "Tighten Up," more than 850,000 copies of Brothers sold in the U.S., and upwards of a million units worldwide, plus innumerable licensing placements in film, TV, and commercials. El Camino features one stand-out track after another, such as first single "Lonely Boy," "Gold on the Ceiling," and the surprising, acoustic-guitar-driven, tempo-shifting "Little Black Submarines."
"This record is more straight ahead rock and roll raw, driving, and back to basics," says Auerbach. As Carney has put it, The Black Keys "respect the past while being in the present," and that formula has made them sound like nothing less than the future of rock and roll. While the largely self-produced Brothers, recorded at the famed Muscle Shoals Studio in Alabama, had a more soul and blues-oriented sound, El Camino often recalls the blitzkrieg-paced British-style rock of the 1960s and '70s, post-Beatles and pre-punk: artists like T-Rex, The Sweet, and Gary Glitter, along with the heavier swing of such bands as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.
The references are there, but the sound is very much contemporary and utterly their own, equally informed by The Black Keys' passion for hip hop and R&B and bolstered by the atmospheric production approach of Danger Mouse (a.k.a. Brian Burton), who was behind the boards for 2008's Attack & Release and collaborated with them on the funky "Tighten Up" for Brothers. As Auerbach notes, "Brian understands all the different kinds of music we're into. He's got really great ideas about melody and song structure. For him it's all about the song." Also rejoining them is consistently innovative mixing engineer Tchad Blake, who Auerbach calls "a genius with audio, a complete wizard."
El Camino came together quickly in an unfettered burst of creativity by the hard-charging pair. They recorded the 11 tracks between tour dates for Brothers at Auerbach's new Easy Eye Studio in Nashville, where he and Carney have now relocated after years of working in their native Akron, Ohio.
In a time of global austerity, The Black Keys work simply and efficiently, with a minimum of tools and a wealth of ideas, to produce the richest, fattest, coolest music around. Upon the release of Brothers in 2010, Britain's Uncut magazine called them "one of the best rock'n'roll bands on the planet," and El Camino, confirms that.
"That thing, El Camino, that snapshot of where singer-guitarist Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney were, is one of the most masterful, upbeat, and outright fun records they've ever made... It's as rock'n'roll as the pair have ever been - a tune like "Sister" qualifies as full-on riff rock. The album's sound, while still raw and distorted in spots, is in general more dynamic and detailed than in the past." - Robert Baird, Stereophile, February 2012 issue
Features:
150 Gram Vinyl
Produced by Danger Mouse & The Black Keys
Mastered by Brian Lucey at Magic Garden Mastering
Includes Limited Time Bonus CD of the Entire Album!
Gatefold Jacket
'Giant' Fold-Out Poster
Selections:
Side A:
1. Lonely Boy
2. Dead And Gone
3. Gold On The Ceiling
4. Little Black Submarines
5. Money Maker
Side B:
1. Run Right Back
2. Sister
3. Hell Of A Season
4. Stop Stop
5. Nova Baby
6. Mind Eraser
