The Black Keys - The Big Come Up

If we talk about the blues and how they are doing nowadays, with the White Stripes gone (here’s hoping the Jack White album is awesome!), there really is not much left in terms of new breed other than the Black Keys. Their latest album, El Camino, saw them reach KLAQ status with huge songs and their first arena tour. But there used to be a time, long ago. when both the Stripes and Black Keys were releasing hit after hit – back in the early 2000s. It was always a big deal to get either band’s vinyl stuff because it sounded VASTLY better for some reason (the bluesy riffs deeper and the awesome fidelity very lush and yes, high) and for the Keys it all began with The Big Come Up. Flashing their vintage, raw, blues sound, this is where the Akron duo developed their underground fanbase; releasing stellar album after stellar album before finally getting some recognition when they signed with Nonesuch and had Danger Mouse producing some stuff. Now, on this album everything sounds much more raw and much more grounded in tight production than anything else.

On “Them Eyes” the duo take a lonely opening lick before chugging along with driving force. He’s done her wrong and as sad as she is, he can’t bear to know how much he’s affected her. “If you don’t bring me back this time, I swear I’m gonna lose my mind,” he declares. Very basic and fundamental, it’s obviously where the roots for songs like “Tighten Up” were invested; here the guitar rides the blues scale with tender care as he sings about tearing up, every time he looks into ‘them eyes.’
But while basic and fundamental is musical jargon, it doesn’t mean that the music is without emotion. Like any solid blues act, the Keys pay homage with covers that directly draw a blues style, along with traditional values. Here, The Beatles' “She Said, She Said” (which was actually a single off this album) is rendered into a sweet cover that keeps the original melody and vibes for a fuzzy rendition. Their raw energy was focused onto production that could mask their instruments with muffled style and they immediately possessed massive chops.
 

And here, on “The Breaks,” the guitar cries in the background as it’s both shredded and yearning for escape. These breaks seem to be the downright blues of losing your loved one, “I know you’re gone, gone for sure” and damn it, realizing it. It’s what people like Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf made blues for back during their time and in 2002 the Keys were just playing the natural blues they learned growing up. Recorded all in one of their basements, it’s still their purest album to date, perhaps a blues standard for the 00s. – Bryan