The Black Keys are back with their 11th studio album “Dropout Boogie” their first since a year after they made “Delta Kream”. This should be viewed as an apology album to their long time fans because that previous album which was a cover album of the blues no one asked for was horrible, but is only a small blemish on their overall contribution to Rock N Roll history.
This album was actually nominated for a Grammy this year and even worked on this album with other musicians like Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top and Greg Cartwright of Reigning Sound.
The dynamic duo of Dan Auerbach on vocals and lead guitar and Patrick Carney on drums (while filling in the other instruments) are back with a real Rock N Roll album. Literally every song on this 10 track album starts off rocking out or picks back up in the middle for some epic guitar riffs to end the song. Personal favorites are “Good love” and “Baby I’m Coming home” as they seem to hit differently.
Even the songs that have some emotional elements to the tone or style/have slow moments tend to have a point where they return to their hard rock sound regardless. One song has a groovy sound to it while another does have some bluesy element to it but again all of the songs contain a rock edge to some degree.
All of their fans should thank them for making it up to us with this album that hopefully makes us forget the last and that it truly defines what this group is-original rock content. The only issue is all of them are good songs but there aren’t any of them that stick out like previous albums. Previous albums had hits like “Howlin’ for you”, “Gold on the Ceiling”, “Weight of Love”, “Little Black Submarines”, or “Lonely Boy” to name some that really stood out. But the tracks “Wild Child” (first single), “It Ain’t Over” (second single), “For the love of the money”, “Your team is looking good”, “How long”, “Burn the damn thing down”, “Happiness” and “Didn’t I love you” all hit the mark for what a rock album is- just most aren’t that memorable.