4/5
Black Star.
Take it as red that Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney are prolific in their production and would be if they worked their 'Dropout' album artwork jobs in exterminator and chef black and whites too. They're smokin'. All cigar. Auerbach already in the 'Chemtrails Over The Country Club', down the 'Blue Bannisters' of production for Lana Del Rey, whose brought out more albums in the pandemic than family photo ones when the one you're dating comes around to meet the parents. So guess who's coming to dinner again? All in the 'Wild Child' of a classic American diner for the States best look of modern blues in all their broods. Cutting more than a cheque please for the record in this road stop that comes exactly a year after The Black Keys pulled into 'Delta Kream'. Well 364 days to be exact, if you want to split hairs on this May day, new music Friday like NPR. This 'Dropout Boogie' over pink script, you usually see revolving above your plates reflection in neon, is a wonderland of the best of blues and a return to form for these songs in the Keys of rock life. A week after Talib Kweli and Yasiin Bey's Black Star changed the streaming game with a podcast release. Auerbach and Carney don't take 24 years to return to their stage as star studded as a hell for leather jacket on the backseat of their ride. 'Kream' that paid tribute to an 1970's Mississippi stop was recorded in 10 hours over just two afternoons. This one began last summer, mere months after the 'Delta'. Bringing Greg Cartwright of Reigning Sound and longtime friend Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top to the Easy Eye Sound studio of Nashville, Tennessee. A play like Williams that will have you dancing like a cat on a hit tin roof. Straight cash like the man in black.
A Band Of Horses (whose latest album 'Things Are Great' really is that, making the best of the worst of times) in support will join this 'Dropout' tour for all you fans of college rock. But it's the Keys that are about to move you like Alicia. The lead single 'Wild Child' is just that crazy good, kids. Singing, "I'm just a stranger/With a twisted smile and a wandering eye/Your heart is in danger/Come close now, let me tell you a lie/Wild child/You got me runnin' through the turnstile/Baby girl, we better make it worthwhile/You're gonna get my love today-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-yeah." Sing along. It's the new American anthem for those too cool to slide out their booth. Put another dime in the jukebox and see how many times it takes before you get to steppin'. The second single even more stirring is actually the second track to boot. 'It Ain't Over' is a beautiful deceleration of subtle defiance. Even with a losing hand. Here's the gambit from Auerbach. "Money and love ain't no sure thing/You live for a thrill, you die for a dream/And when it comes around, you lay your money down/You got a love that's a real long shot/Breakin' the bank for your new weak spot/When she comes around, you lay your money down/No one else for you to blame/But when you play that losing game/It ain't over." It just keeps on rollin'. For better or worse. Just like 'For The Love Of Money' as these two for it, put even more stacks down. Just like they were betting on the Bucks. 'Your Team Is Looking Good' and in the fourth so is this dynamic duo's. All before they recruit a sharp dressed man with a hell of a beard for the Gibbons axe assisted 'Good Love'. Pointed like a pincushion as you face the facts. In three verses and no chorus. Straight like that with no chaser. "Good loving is so hard to find/Everybody wanna waste your time/Waste your time, yours and mine/A good love is hard to find/Good loving is so hard to feel/You got nothing till you find the real deal/Find the real, there it is/A good love is hard to feel/Don't you rush it, gotta take it slow/You can't listen to the friends you know/'Cause they don't know what you know/But good love is hard to know." Could you put it better any other way? That's love.
The Black sound keyed in here will never fade to black as they become to stars and stripes what a Jack and Meg White or a Stroke of good blues is. 'How Long' have they been doing this? 11 straight albums as they give it to us like that as they 'Burn The Damn Thing Down'. All in the same week we get the hotly anticipated Kendrick Lamar album ('Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers') and a long awaited Florence and the Machine release that rages on the floor ('Dance Fever'). Let alone a magnificent month in what is almost already six months and a great year in music. You can't ignore this one as Auerbach says, "Way out over the ocean/Deep down under the sea/Way up high to the top of the mountain/And everywhere in between." Rolling day and night, even if they are tried and tested and fresh off another album only a calendar yesterday. But the US and us can never get enough of those good ole blues. This is the sort of 'Happiness' that comes with a hollowed track like this. Or a great to the genre in signature style like 'Baby I'm Coming Home'. Knocking at your door. Dan singing "I buy the things that make you smile/And send them with a kiss/The road is winding home/And only you know what I've really missed", to his sweet Sadie. 'Didn't I Love You?' He asks in 'Dropout's' fallout as Carney touches the skins. "You may not be believe me, baby/'Cause I didn't always treat you right/Might have deceived you, lady/Maybe I stayed out late at night." It's just these classic couplets of loving laments, sung by King's and those stuck in Muddy Waters that remind us that this is what the blues are all about. And back to Black this shade of blue for the red and white makes everything alright. Up jumps the 'Boogie'. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'Wild Child', 'It Ain't Over', 'Good Love (Feat. Billy F. Gibbons)'.
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