The Black Keys
– Brothers
Brothers hums and sweats like an amp that’s been left on too long. This is the album where The Black Keys, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, ditched the basement blues purism just enough to find a bigger stage—but they never cleaned the grime off their boots. It’s a sultry, swampy, sometimes staggering walk through love gone sideways and the kinds of nights that end in regret, or at least a hangover.
Best of…
What makes Brothers tick is its restraint. Auerbach’s guitar doesn’t scream—it moans, it sneers, it waits. Carney’s drums sound like they were recorded in a cement warehouse, because they probably were. Danger Mouse drops in for one track, but otherwise this is the band’s rawest and most hypnotic hour, fleshed out but not overdressed. The grooves are fat, the riffs are sticky, and the vibe is: Don’t call, don’t come over, but also please don’t leave.
It’s a breakup album that sounds like it’s trying to seduce the one who left. Lusty and low-slung, it drags its feet in all the right ways. You can hear the heartbreak, but also the grin behind it. The Black Keys didn’t reinvent themselves here—they just figured out how to sound like themselves with a bigger budget and a better plan to make you sweat.
Choice Tracks
Tighten Up
The one Danger Mouse helped sculpt, and it shows. It swings. It struts. The whistle intro gives way to one of their catchiest hooks, and Auerbach sounds like he’s trying to talk himself into being over it. He’s not, and that’s the charm.
Next Girl
Equal parts snarl and shrug. It’s got a riff that sticks like gum under your shoe, and lyrics that reek of false confidence. “My next girl / will be nothing like my ex-girl”—sure, buddy. Keep telling yourself that.
Howlin’ for You
Stomp-and-clap blues rock with a surf twang. It’s primal, dumb fun—the kind of song that belongs on jukeboxes in bars with no windows. Auerbach croons like a wolf with a switchblade in his boot.
Everlasting Light
The album opener, and it’s a left turn—falsetto vocals over a sleazy, crawling groove. It sets the mood right away: this is The Black Keys playing with shadows and neon, not just garage grit.
Too Afraid to Love You
A heartbreak ballad wrapped in smoky keys and sparse percussion. Auerbach’s voice sounds like it’s been up all night crying into the mirror. Soulful and wounded, without a hint of pretense.
Brothers doesn’t try to be pretty. It just tries to sound honest, even when it’s lying to itself. It’s blues rock filtered through the lens of a band that finally figured out how to be loud without shouting. It doesn’t beg you to love it—it just leans in and lets the groove do the talking.