The Black Keys in 10 Songs

I’ll Be Your Man (The Big Come Up – 2002)

Ever since they released their first album in May 2002, The Black Keys have been putting out sparse music that they have stripped down to the essentials. Their music has the same minimalism (there are only two of them: Dan Auerbach on vocals and guitar and Patrick Carney on drums) and radical vision (two mics plugged into an 8-track in their cellar) that propelled The White Stripes, three years their seniors, to the summits that the Keys are climbing today, albeit with greater respect for a certain Blues tradition. And this isn't just any Blues tradition: I'll Be Your Man (like all the tracks on The Big Come Up) is heir to the dirty, angry, violent, sexual and raw Blues made by the likes of Junior Kimbrough, R. L. Burnside and the master, Howlin’ Wolf. Aged only 22, Auerbach let loose a howl no less radical than the legendary Wolf. This could be seen as a kind of anti-Clapton Blues, blasting away the polish, the illuminations and everything which could give the genre too much sheen. Their music brings to mind a dilapidated juke joint with "NO SOLOS" engraved on the door... From the outset, there was more energy, more truth, and more rock'n'roll in The Black Keys than in many self-declared Blues bands of the time. And on top of all that, they put out soul music that reeked of sex: a theme that I'll Be Your Man really hammers home.

Have Love Will Travel (Thickfreakness – 2003)

On their second album, The Black Keys made it clear that they are anything but a White Stripes Mark Two. Once again, this is underground Blues that sounds like it crawled out of murky bars and shabby brothels. The Muddy Waters/Howlin' Wolf heritage is all still there, but now blended with a hefty dose of garage rock. It's hard to talk about garage without thinking of The Sonics, the cult 60s outfit from Tacoma, near Seattle. Auerbach and Carney revisit one of their most famous numbers here, Have Love Will Travel (which was in fact written by Richard Berry, the author of Louie Louie), giving it a swampier, less shrill treatment. Auerbach's guitar is connected to a prehistoric fuzz pedal that gives the song an even more shamanic feel. With this song, The Black Keys are fine-tuning a style and a sound all of their own, aided by Auerbach's unfiltered, sandpapery voice. It's a gut-wrenching symphony that sounds like a Mississippi jukebox has been hooked up to a 2,000-volt line. That’s no mean trick for two kids from Akron, in the heart of industrial Ohio.

The Lengths (Rubber Factory – 2004)

Dan Auerbach doesn't scream; he doesn't attack people with his guitar; and Pat Carney doesn't go around punching the walls. But The Black Keys are skilled at getting out of their comfort zones, and The Lengths hints at a rare vulnerability in the Akron duo. With its faintly rusty, poetic slide guitar, fragile vocals and confessional lyrics, this offbeat track lights up Rubber Factor. Like the cover of Act Nice and Gentle by The Kinks, which is another highlight of this third album, The Lengths is neither an apology nor a piece of filler. This track showcases the Keys' musical ambitions, who had realised that they couldn't rest on their laurels as kings of lo-fi garage blues until the end of time. It is a pivotal song on Rubber Factory, which is probably the first record that the pair structured as a real album, with a beginning, a middle and an end, rather than just a string of pearls... Taking a step away from his usual Howlin' Wolf-like snarling, Dan Auerbach's plaintive vocals on The Lengths are touchingly sincere.

Keep Your Hands off Her (Chulahoma: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough – 2006)

Auerbach and Carney underscored their trademark with a mini-album, Chulahoma, dedicated to the works of their idol, the late Junior Kimbrough, a neighbour (physical and spiritual) of R.L. Burnside whose final albums would be released on Fat Possum, where the Keys started out. Kimbrough had already been celebrated by the duo on the tribute album Sunday Nights – The Songs of Junior Kimbrough. "When I was 18," Auerbach recalls, "I would listen to Sad Days Lonely Nights on repeat. It's an amazing guitar album that gives you goose bumps. It was very hard to find and I was crazy about it. I would skip school and play guitar in my room all day listening to it. Then I dropped out of college but carried on listening to music." Keep Your Hands Off Her, which opens the album, sets the stage with Kimbrough's vision and taste. But this introduction merges with the five covers that follow. The songs all seem to run together, like a long blues raga winding around a rhythm built by Carney's expert drumming. It's a uniquely zen experience, without any superfluous solos: the listener is physically and aurally transfixed.

Same Old Thing (Attack & Release – 2008)

Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, is a producer best known for his work in the world of rap. By putting him at the console for Attack and Release, The Black Keys took another step away from the world of garage blues that they know so well. On this ambitious album, released in April 2008, Same Old Thing, with its vaguely jazzy, psychedelic flute (played by Ralph Carney, Pat's uncle), was another sign of the Ohio duo's desire to move on to pastures new. Likewise, the album has the pair casting a longing eye at classic rock, soul, and psychedelic sounds. The framework of the song here is still quite traditional: both the beat and the guitar are pretty minimalist. But Dan Auerbach gradually raises the temperature with his vocals, which sound like a lo-fi Led Zeppelin. He hammers out, "just the same old thing, just the same old thing", as if trying to persuade us that this is just another Black Keys production, while in fact his band is in the process of moving out of the juke joint and into somewhere with a touch more class (but, luckily, not a lounge bar).