ROUND-UP: BLUES
By Henry Yates
The Black Keys: catchy tunes and their most sociable album yet.
JIM HERRINGTON/PRESS
The Black Keys
Ohio Players
NONESUCH
Two decades after Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney stripped the blues-band format back to the bone, the Ohio duo’s twelfth album is their most sociable yet, with a guest list that includes Beck, Noel Gallagher, a brace of Memphis rappers and more besides.
If you haven’t yet heard the album’s lead single Beautiful People (Stay High), rectify that. It’s a tearaway slice of whiteboy soul, so immediate that you’ll join the cast-of-thousands vocal by the second chorus. The rest of Ohio Players is almost as good, with the greasy bass line of opener This Is Nowhere setting up a record that is strikingly funky.