The Black Keys’ “Brothers” (2010) – The Weekend Review

By Chris Moore:

RATING:  3.5 / 5 stars

In many ways, the Black Keys are as simple a group as any making music of any kind these days.  Their lineup?  Two men: Patrick Carney on drums and Dan Auerbach on guitar.  Their music?  Often riff driven, and usually classified as blues rock.  Their most recent album?  Well, the cover reads, “This is an album by The Black Keys.  The name of this album is Brothers.”  The back cover?  Reads: “These are the names of the songs on this album.  These are the guys in the band.”

From the outside, there has never been an arrangement of sounds, words, and packaging that was quite so blunt.

And yet, there is an inner torment here, ostensibly brought on by the soul-searching trip down memory lane that runs as a common thread throughout all fifteen tracks on Brothers.  At every lyrical turn, the songs return to that most basic of subject matter: the effects of early — and, most often, painful — experiences with love.

It comes as no surprise, then, that the Black Keys would set the music video for “Tighten Up” on a playground, a video which finds Carney and Auerbach’s sons (in the storyline, at least) vying for the attention of a girl.  By the end of the video, the adults, after trying to break up the fight, have begun fighting over the mother of the girl.

The moral of the story, it seems, is that we may grow older, but we never truly change.

Especially when it comes to attraction and love.

As Auerbach sings in “Tighten Up,” “When I was young and moving fast / Nothing slowed me down.”  As the years have gone by, he’s “Living just to keep going / Going just to keep sane.”  The latter lines suggest that there are accumulated memories and experiences from which to run.

These fifteen songs — alternating between the outstanding and the okay — pick at the scars in order to explore those memories and experiences.

The Black Keys' "Brothers" (2010)

The Black Keys' "Brothers" (2010)

Alternating between tender vulnerability and world-weary realism, the resounding statement that this album makes is, as stated on “Next Girl,” “I made mistakes back then / I’ll never do it again.”  During the album-long review of history, there are some mild bouts of nostalgia, but most of those even end in an audible hardening of the skin.  Most are stark realizations, as he goes on to sing in this song that “A beautiful face / And a wicked way / And I’m paying for her / Beautiful face every day.”

“Next Girl” may seem harsh, even misogynistic, but at its core, it is a song about loving not only based on appearances, but also being aware of the deeper values.

Much of the material here refers to relationships gone wrong, as in “She’s Long Gone” when Auerbach sings about a girl who “was made to blow you away/ She don’t care what any man say / You can watch her strut / But keep your mouth shut / Or it’s ruination day.”  This is the classic girl-as-temptress scenario, and calls to mind Estella, the girl who was raised to break men’s hearts in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.  The term “ruination day” adds a biblical edge to the tale.

This girl must really have made an impression, as Auerbach goes on to sing, “And she’s not made like those other girls.”

Revisiting track four, one is left to wonder if this is the same girl he is referring to when he sings, “Throw the ball / To the stick / Swing and miss / In the catcher’s mitt / Strike two / Baby I’m howlin’ for you.”

Another theme that is played out is that of jealousy and its longtime ally revenge.  In “Ten Cent Pistol,” Auerbach establishes himself as a third person narrator, telling the tale of a man who “ran around / Late at night / Holding hands / And making light / Of everything / That came before.”  This individual, apparently vowing never to commit, goes on to make an enemy of a woman, perhaps surprised that their time together turned out to be a one-night stand.

He goes on to sing, “There’s nothing worse / In this world / Than payback from a / Jealous girl / The laws of man / Don’t apply / When blood gets in / A woman’s eye.”  Again, a bit exaggerated perhaps, but this sentiment is in line with the woman-as-dangerous paradigm that is explored throughout the album.

The middle to end of the album is perhaps the most blunt, as Auerbach sings of morality in “Sinister Kid,” noting that “Your mother’s words / They’re ringing still / But your mother don’t / Pay our bills.”  Later, in “The Go Getter,” he recounts, “I got a table at the Rainbow Room / I told my wife I’d be home soon… I see my life going down the drain / Hold me baby and don’t let go / Pretty girls help to soften the blow.”  In both cases, the commonality is idealism versus realism.  Both acknowledge normalcy (or what “should” be done), yet go on to do what is necessary, or at least what “help[s] to soften the blow.”

The low point for optimism falls in “I’m Not the One,” as Auerbach asserts, “You think / That I’m normal / But all these years / I’m just trying to warn you / You’d do good / To move on / No it won’t / Hurt me none.”

It’s difficult to believe a statement like this, particularly the idea that another moving on wouldn’t hurt, considering the more vulnerable moments that are explored on this album, as in “Too Afraid to Love You” when he admits that most basic of human truths: “I’m just one wishing / That I was a pair / With someone / Oh somewhere.”  Then, there is their decision to cover “Never Gonna Give You Up,” which is hardly a song of defeat.

To be certain, the narrator’s recounting of what seem to be early experiences with love are most often delivered with a subtext of regret embedded.  Oftentimes, the pain is felt when reality overshadows the imagination, as in “The Only One,” when he sings, “Like a ghost / The one that I love most / She disappears / When I get near.”  This is perhaps the most difficult lesson of all for a young man to learn: namely, that we often build up the ones we love to be something — typically something more — than what they are in reality.

Memories aren’t all bad on the album, though when they aren’t bad, they’re sad, as in “Unknown Brother”:  “We’ll smile like pictures / Of you as a boy / Long before you retired / To heavenly joy.”  This is really the first time since the opening track, where Auerbach states “Love is the coal / That makes this train roll,” that affection is viewed in a positive light.

The album begins with the optimistic sentiment, “Let me be your everlasting light / The sun when there is none,” but it soon turns out that this is probably less a serious request than a desire to believe that this kind of simple, pure love could exist.  This seems to be supported by the closing track of the album, when Auerbach confides in us that, “Wasted times and broken dreams / Violent colors so obscene / It’s all I see these days / These days.”

These songs could be taken at face value as simple little blues rock numbers, but there is so much more woven into the lyrics, and particularly into the vocal deliveries, guitar riffs, and other instrumentation.  All in all, Brothers reads as a return for Carney and Auerbach to the Black Keys, a brotherhood of sorts, that exists after all these years as an outlet for them, as something in which to place faith in the ability of man to feel genuine camaraderie and sentiment, even if it is wrapped in pain and torment.

But, then again, that’s the blues, right?

Weezer’s “Death to False Metal” (2010) – The Weekend Review

By Chris Moore:

RATING:  3 / 5 stars

Didn’t I already write a Weezer review this year?  And last year?  And the year before that?

Yes, on all three counts.

So, allow me to begin with the disclaimer that Death to False Metal, though it receives only a half star lower than the rating I granted Hurley, is not as cohesive an effort in comparison.  The individual songs shine in places and come up short in others.  It is, after all, a collection of songs that, for various reasons, didn’t make the cut on their previous studio albums.

What is fascinating about this release — and what grants credibility to Rivers Cuomo’s stance that this should be considered Weezer’s ninth studio album proper — is that the songs haven’t simply been culled from studio tapes, digitized, and hastily thrown together.  As the official press release reads, “The album was created using the basic tracks of 10 previously unreleased recordings — nine never-before-heard songs plus one cover — to assemble a brand new and truly modern-sounding record.”

This is what is most striking about the album on first listen: that it sounds like an album.  Considering that the tracks hail from periods as diverse as Pinkerton, Maladroit, Make Believe, and The Red Album, this could very easily have sounded like your typical “Greatest Misses” compilation.  Some, like Bob Dylan, have pulled off this brand of release, largely due to the fact that their vaults are populated by excellent cuts.  Most, however, release these compilations for the enjoyment of only the most fanatic segments of their audience.

On Death to False Metal, Cuomo and company have introduced a third option: remake the songs as one might restore a car, balancing a faithfulness to the original design with an attention to more contemporary sensibilities.

Death To False Metal (Weezer, 2010)

Death To False Metal (Weezer, 2010)

As could be expected, even with a band with as characteristic a sound and feel as Weezer, there is still a sense that these tracks have been compiled.  The transition from the grunge of “Everyone” to the glittery pop/rock of “I’m a Robot” is particularly noticeable.  What’s more, both of these tracks fall firmly under the “I-see-why-they-were-scratched” category.  Still, there is an energy to them that is infectious, and if you enjoy this band’s style, you will find yourself turning up the sound.  Although these two songs have the potential to become grating, they also clock in at well under three minutes each.

Elsewhere, the simplicity is appealing, as it is on “Trampoline” and “I Don’t Want Your Loving.”  And “Turning Up the Radio” is yet one more reminder that, simple or not, Weezer are the kings of the epic chorus.

The decision to work from the basic tracks up is what sets this release apart and what makes it a solid album.  If you want to split hairs about the quality of individual songs, even in comparison to other Weezer tunes, then you could lose yourself in the criticism and find, in the end, that you’d missed the point of the album.

The point, as supported by the opener, is to turn up the volume and enjoy a set of songs that have been filtered through the Weezer of 2010, which — contrary to what critics (myself included) were concluding as recently as a year ago — is actually saying a great deal.

The packaging itself is impressive as it so very rarely is with this band.  Much of the obvious has been stated and restated as concerns the cover, but little has been noted about the presence of lyrics, pictures, drawings, and other elements of intelligent design within the booklet.

The fact that two staples were required for assembly is, in itself, pleasantly surprising.

So, if you’re tired of what passes for rock on mainstream radio, pick up a copy of Death to False Metal.  It won’t change your life and it probably won’t make your end-of-year top ten list, but it will be an album you’ll crank up and enjoy over and over again.  Even the Toni Braxton cover that concludes the disc is surprisingly consistent with the tenor of the previous tracks.  And, if you manage to block out all memories of nineties radio and half-drunken karaoke nights at your local bar, then you might even think it’s a decent song.

After a questionable 2009, Weezer has returned with two of the most enjoyable and respectable releases of 2010.  Death to False Metal may be an “odds and ends” album, to borrow the language of early band chatter, but it holds its own against the very strong Hurley.

How to Destroy Angels’ “How to Destroy Angels” EP (2010) – YES, NO, or MAYBE SO

How to Destroy Angels’ How to Destroy Angels EP (2010) – MAYBE

"How To Destroy Angels" (How To Destroy Angels, 2010)

"How To Destroy Angels" (How To Destroy Angels, 2010)

(June 1, 2010)

Review:

I don’t know that I’ll ever “get” the finer points of such experimental/industrial rock as How to Destroy Angels creates, yet even I can register the passive-aggressive patterns laid out across these six tracks, accented by volleys of bass, carefully constructed drum tracks, and — not to be overlooked — (Trent Reznor’s wife and bandmate) Mariqueen Maandig’s deep, rich vocals.

Top Two Tracks:

“Fur Lined” & “Parasite”

Blitzen Trapper’s “Destroyer of the Void” (2010) – YES, NO, MAYBE SO?

Blitzen Trapper’s Destroyer of the Void (2010) – MAYBE SO

Destroyer Of The Void (Blitzen Trapper, 2010)

Destroyer Of The Void (Blitzen Trapper, 2010)

(June 8, 2010)

Review:

This summer, I wrote off Destroyer of the Void for sounding too much like a throwback to seventies rock, but I dropped the ball on this one: beyond the obvious comparisons, it has a strong instrumental foundation, creative lyrical sense, and adds up to a strong album.

Top Two Tracks:

“Below the Hurricane” & “Love and Hate”