Review Summary: Repetition doesn't always make the heart grow fonder...
Immediately following the breakthrough success of their sixth full-length, 2010's
Brothers, the Black Keys decided to forego touring in support of the record and instead bang out some up-tempo, road worthy tunes in the studio with producer Danger Mouse. Only a year and a half later, as autumn drew to a close the following year,
El Camino was released to even more commercial and critical fanfare and the two gents from Akron, OH were ready to take the festival and arena circuit by storm. As the Grammys and album sales piled up, it appeared as if Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney could do no wrong. But time is a cruel mistress...fast forward several years later, following their subsequent mediocre-at-best LP
Turn Blue, the Keys are in a state of flux and
El Camino was the bridge that led to that gradual decline. This record may have felt like a helluva sugar rush at first (or even third) listen and
Camino certainly has many virtues, but its lack of musical and lyrical diversity and Mr. Mouse's over-production has relegated the album to a surface-deep pleasure ride, not as worthy of repeated spins as the rest of the Keys' catalog.
It's not as if
El Camino doesn't have its fair share of redeeming qualities - the first two singles from the album ("Lonely Boy" and "Gold on the Ceiling") still stand up over time as fun nuggets of faux-garage arena rock and many of the tracks have moments or sounds that the Keys had not explored up to that point in time. Examples include the swinging groove in the back half of "Hell of a Season", the multi-tracked anthemic chorus in "Nova Baby", and the solo acoustic build-up in "Little Black Submarines". It is a very up-tempo collection of songs that certainly "sounds" good - Auerbach's vocals and instrumentation are competent, Carney's drums have a certain imperfect charm about them, and the riffs and melodies have an ear-worm quality that calls back to the Keys 60's and 70's influences.
However, after a few spins, it becomes hard to distinguish an individual track from one another, as most of the songs clock in around 3:30 and follow a basic formula of 4/4 time and verse/chorus/verse/chorus/solo/outro. Throwing in a couple more changes of pace ala "Submarines" would have broken up the monotony and allowed the listener to reset before barreling into another throwaway jam. The lyrics featured on
El Camino are also substantially unsubstantive - even more so than on a typical Keys record. Just looking at the titles of "Little Black Submarines" and "Gold on the Ceiling" gives the listener a glimpse into the lack of deeper meaning behind most of these songs, as if the words are meant to be simple place-holders to be whipped up before a lunch break. The Keys' style of music may not lend itself to thought-provoking soliloquies, but having some sort of relevant subject in a song allows the listener to attach his/her own meaning to it and increases its emotional longevity. Instead, the shallowness of the lyrics act as a distraction and prevents the album from reaching the same heights of
Brothers,
Rubber Factory, et al.
Finally, we come to the production. History has proven that a little bit of Danger Mouse goes a long way..."Tighten Up" was an excellently constructed piece of music but was also the only song from
Brothers with his signature on it, which helped to distinguish it from the rest of that album. But the infamous producer was given full rein on
Camino and while a couple of the songs benefit (namely the singles), the majority of the tracks suffer from his overwhelming urge to add female background vocals to every chorus and layered keyboard fifths where only gritty guitar should exist. A trick done once or twice has a more lasting and satisfying effect than one repeated eleven times throughout the course of the album, and it would only get worse on
Turn Blue, as Keys fans would find out years later.
In summary,
El Camino is a solid album and worthy addition to the Black Keys catalog with some songs that will be permanent additions to rock radio and summer set lists. The aforementioned singles are highlights as well as "Sister", "Nova Baby", and "Money Maker" (imo). But the repetitive nature of the music, banality of the lyrics, and inescapable production values of Danger Mouse all mean that this Keys' success vehicle isn't worth quite as much as we all thought it was in 2011.
