6 April 2024

Ohio‘s blues brothers THE BLACK KEYS have
their 12th LP, titled OHIO PLAYERS out.

Rolling Stone‘s verdict: “In many ways, Ohio Players imagines what the Keys might
have sounded like had they been born into the eclectic mid- to late-Nineties that Beck ruled
rather than the minimalist rock-is-back early-2000s. It was a period when every genre — indie rock, hip-hop, trip-hop, rave, and exotica — melted into mellow gold. That era isn’t as mythic as the Mississippi Delta or a weed-fogged Seventies arena show. But it’s a little closer to Auerbach and Carney’s lived experience, and on Ohio Players, they’re at home in every groove.”

Press photo

TUTV: Surprise, surprise. The Black Keys made an album that features lots of bright pop tunes and some light blues ones. The licks/riffs and hooks, about a thousand of course, haven’t that BK’s raw and rough edge as we are used to.

The overall sonority leans more towards power guitar pop (slow, mid-tempo and only
a couple of fast ones), maybe that’s Beck‘s vibes influence, who is present on half of the songs. Even here and there, Auerbach vocals go as high as the Bee Gees helium-infused pipes did back in time and on a couple of songs they invited befriended rappers Lil Noid and Juicy J. Noel Gallagher is supposed to be somewhere in there too.

I never thought that the tandem would come up after 23 years (yes, twenty-three years!) with a different sounding, coherent longplayer, without ignoring their blues roots that is. Ohio Players will be the album that I’ll play more than their whole catalog together. Surprise, surprise indeed.

TOP TRACKS: This Is Nowhere / Beautiful People (Stay High) / On The Game /
Please Me (Till I’m Satisfied) / Every Time You Leave Me

ALBUM

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THE BLACK KEYS: Instagram