The Black Keys - 'Attack And Release' (V2)

'Attack And Release' The Black Keys' fifth full-length album follows their 2006 critically acclaimed 'Magic Potion', an album hailed "a gritty, wild, minimalist masterpiece".

CLASS ACT: The Black Keys.

Produced by Danger Mouse (Gnarls Barkley, Gorillaz) 'Attack And Release' was recorded at engineer Paul Hamann's illustrious Suma Studio outside Cleveland, Ohio.

Initial collaboration began when Danger Mouse approached the band to write songs for an album he was developing with the late R&B legend Ike Turner.

As the band began composing tracks for Turner early last year, though, they quickly realised they were actually laying the groundwork for a new album of their own.

'Attack And Release' thus became The Black Keys' first collaborative effort, as it morphed into their own album with Danger Mouse as producer.

By recording in an actual studio, another first, guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney were given the opportunity to add a variety of instruments to their usual simple set-up including organ, moog, and banjo.

Besides Auerbach, Carney and Danger Mouse's work, other contributions on 'Attack And Release' including guitarist Marc Ribot and multi-instrumentalist Ralph Carney (Patrick's uncle) – both veterans, of among other things, Tom Waits's band.

The closing track 'Things Ain't Like They Used To Be' even features Auerbach singing alongside 18-year-old bluegrass/country singer Jessica Lea Mayfield.

In the past The Black Keys have had a concentrated, hermetic approach to recording, hunkering down with rudimentary equipment in an unfinished basement or commandeering the floor of a vacant local rubber factory to create terse but soulful rock that seems to have time-travelled into the pair's amps from some long-ago radio show.

But 'Attack And Release' suggests Auerbach and Carney were ready for a change of scene-as well as some company.

With Danger Mouse, The Black Keys didn't veer uncomfortably far from the elemental rock and roll territory they'd mined so effectively on previous albums like their 2006 debut, 'Magic Potion', or their Fat Possum discs, 'Rubber Factory' (2004) and 'Thickfreakness' (2003).

But by the sounds of it they were definitely in a mood to experiment on 'Attack and Release'. The new tracks have a spaciousness and clarity that accentuate the soulfulness in Dan's preternaturally weathered vocals and in arrangements that oscillate between melancholy and swagger. There's a subtle range of extra instrumentation and some very cool arrangements; like the ghostly choir that surfaces midway through 'I Got Mine'.

This is an album that sounds big and beefy without losing any of the band's lo-fi leanings. Class stuff. (4/5)

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