4/5
American Kream.
Roll with Stones, Leon Kings and Stripes of White all you like, but rock and roll just aint the same without songs in The Black Keys of life. In the same day we get new releases from the seventies soul of a new St. Vincent ('Daddy's Home') and rapping baller J. Cole on fire like the hoop ('The Off-Season'), we can't forget about Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney. These 'Brothers' like an 'Everlasting Light' gleam again. The duo from Akron, Ohio like a Hollywood King hop back in an album vehicle like an 'El Camino' and pull into the 'Delta Kream' surrounded always by Coca Cola for this road stop and your ultimate highway music to hit the road to Jack. The garage rock blues brothers give us an album of hill country covers that still sounds as fresh as one of their own original sets. Recorded in about 10 hours in a Nashville stereo like Dolly or the Man In Black. That's as real and raw as it gets is straight cash like breaking a twenty. The Easy Eye Sound Studio is not hard on your hearing either. "Well, I'm a crawling king snake, babe/Crawl up on your door/Crawl up to your window, babe/Crawl up on your floor/I do anything I want to, babe/Crawl up on your door/Crawling king snake/And I'm going", Auerbach sings on the 'Crawling King Snake' of Big Joe Williams and John Lee Hooker lead. Honouring the Mississippi blues tradition...lets rock!
'Louise' is a beautiful ode, word to my sisters middle name. Whilst 'Poor Boy A Long Way From Home' by R. L. Burneside burns with a new urgency and this acts agency. "Babe, I can't stay here long/No, no, no/Poor boy, I’m a long way from home/Where the world can't do me no", The song sings with an aching urgency in this poetic time were everything comes back around. The blues hasn't sounded this somber in a long while...and I can't remember the last time we needed it quite like this. As this record plays into your lonely night, medicating it like whiskey for your love on the rocks, here comes the twist like the way she used to move. 'Delta's', 'Stay All Night' and its yearning darkening your door is the cream of 'Kream's' crop, changing up the register like cashing up. "Girl I love/Girl I need/To be your baby/Hold me tight", they sing like Junior Kimbrough as you "take off your clothes, and throw them in the corner". Motel music perfect for that one night you'll find company 'Going Down South' with another Burnside for this road stop on the trail. Revisiting the genre legends words, "I'm going with you, babe, I'm going with you, babe/Going with you, babe, I'm going with you, babe/Don't care where you go/Some other man, some other man/Some other man, some other man/He's always hanging around/I'd rather be dead, rather be dead/Rather be dead, I'd rather be dead/Six feet in the ground," in this outstanding ode and the American dream that woke up this type of sound in the bruised heartland.
Right now like a John Mayer (speaking of guitar heroes) 'Continuum' (speaking of classics), the state of America is in repair, United under Biden's US with a Springsteen workman boot stamping out a red cap. It still need tinkering under the hood with some American muscle, but it's getting there like the end of the highway and the light in that roads tunnel to the dream you always loved growing up around the world with posters on your wall. And into their second decade The Black Keys are part of the real great American legend, as they honor another one far greater in any tradition to celebrate their twentieth anniversary in the game with their tenth album. Auerbach and Carney in this country and the music of this same name have the keys again after we almost faded to black for this 'Coal Black Mattie'. So let's roll with this tour across all the routes to your heart with these songs in everyone's back pocket. Tuned in as they 'Do The Romp' with another crawling Kimbrough rendition that's King like James. As a matter of fact the caboose of the album, aside from Big Joe Williams' 'Mellow Peaches' with Georgia on your mind like Willie Nelson plays all for Junior like the kids of proud parents. On 'Sad Days, Lonely Nights' the pair toast somber solidarity with lyrics like, "My mama told me/When I was a child/She said, "Son, gonna have hard days"/My daddy told me too/He said, "Son, gonna have sad days, lonely nights"/Sittin' alone, head hung down/Tears runnin' down/Sad days, lonely nights/Done overtaken me." But they won't let it pull them over as 'Walk With Me' takes us away and holds a thumb up in approval to a set that shines without a broken taillight. It's the classic closer 'Come and Go With Me' that really tides you over however. Culminating in ravishing riffs that will encore the rest of your evening as day turns into the twilight of night, staring through the rearview of your windshield. Zoned out to, "Come on, come on, baby/Come on and go with me/I need lovin'/I need love so bad/It's a lowdown cryin' shame", and the music that shaped these Keys' sound as they picked up picks and sticks. This amazing albums artwork comes courtesy of Memphis, Tennesseean William Eggleston of an Oldsmobile Cutlass parked outside this shop in Tunica during the 1970's. Sadly, like all the best things in life, Delta Kream doesn't exist anymore. But thanks to The Black Keys Mississippi music like this, does. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'Crawling Kingsnake', 'Louise', 'Come and Go With Me'.
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