Customer Reviews
Black Keys CD 
2008-06-08
One of the best cd's I've purchased in a while. Unique blues sound, very original.
Rockin' band with a consuming sound! 2008-06-05
Love the sound of this album. Little different than Magic Potion but enjoyed just as well.
Black Keys sound bored ..... 
2008-06-02
Loved the Black Keys when first hearing them back many years now. I have to be honest I really wanted to like this cd and the Magic Potion cd as well....but alas they are sounding like they ran out of ideas. While driving from Las Vegas back home to L.A. and having absolutely nothing to do I put the cd " Attack and Release " in the player for the 3 rd time since buying and still couldn't get thru the first song...really bad. The rest of the cd isn't all that bad but it sounds boring...
My idea would be to have the guys do a cd of some classic blues songs from the late fifties and then try their hand at some late sixties rock ...would love to hear " Walk Away by the James Gang " done the Balck Keys way...or something like " Bloodwyn Pig " or " Savoy Brown tunes" oh well again I really loved these guys and I wish them all the best ...but me thinks its time for something new and not Danger Mouse new ...but Black Keys new!
Nothing changes.... 2008-05-16
Still worth it. The Black Keys will never be anything different than the Black Keys, but who would want that? Catchy music, it makes you want to drive fast sometimes and lulls you into weird dreams others. Genius drumming and solid formulaic riffs.
Things Aint Like They Used to Be, for the Black Keys. 
2008-05-09
I've spent a lot of time sorting out my mixed feelings about this album, and I'm not sure if I've sorted them all out yet but I figured I'd give it a try. In many ways it is too smooth, it lacks the grit, inconsistencies and heavy rifts that gave them a sound that was so intoxicating. You could take any song, grab onto their brilliant rifts and let them take you for a ride that beat any roller coaster. These are the type of songs that Patrick Carney produces so brilliantly, so I was hesitant when I heard Danger Mouse was producing. While he does some good, even great stuff, a nice riff certainly isn't his thing. I haven't changed my thinking. Danger Mouse never let the riffs take over, he never gave them enough room to breathe. "I Got Mine" is probably the biggest offender, since it seemed to aspire to be a song from a previous Keys album, but falling well short. On Remember When (Side B) probably comes closest to mastering the rifts, but as good of as song it is, I feel Patrick would have handled it better.
On the other hand, there are some truly great songs on this album. "Psychotic Girl" sounds far more like a Danger Mouse song than a TBK song, but I find it hard to deny its brilliance. "Ocean and Streams" and "So He Won't Break" definitely have the Danger Mouse fingerprints, but manage to maintain much of the TBK spirit, leaving us with some really good songs.
The song I've found to be my favorite is "Things Ain't Like They Used to Be." From the opening record player crackle I knew I was getting something a little more raw than the rest of the album, and was rewarded with the kind of brilliant, pull at your heart strings ballad that many attempt, but only the greatest can pull off.
Overall I think I really like this album. However, as someone that has heard every song The Black Keys have ever released (trust me, they don't make it easy for you to find everything), I'd put this towards the bottom of their pantheon. I know they wanted to try to expand their sound, and I think they did so far more brilliantly with "Rubber Factory." This album may have been better served with Danger Mouse and Patrick splitting producing duties, Pat on some of the more riff focused songs with DM taking over on the others. I hope Patrick goes back to producing for the Keys after this, since he's proven to be the only one to fully harness the raw power and the energy that is The Black Keys.
Don't buy the vinyl version !! 
2008-07-09
I just did a mistake by buying the vinyl version of this great album. I collect vinyl, so I was very glade to have it. But it's a sonically shame !!! It's a mystery why the CD version sounds good and the vinyl SO BAD. Somebody has done something wrong on the way of producing the vinyl.
I'm a little sad... 2008-06-28
listening to this latest Black Keys album. I know it's very popular to love this album and the collaboration between Danger Mouse and the Keys, but it just ain't got the simple beauty of their earlier stuff. While I agree with others that innovation and change are good things for bands to explore, I do not think that is what happened here. It feels to me like they just dressed up some old concepts and dulled the edge that makes the early stuff so great. I also agree that Magic Potion was not very inspired, but I do miss being amazed by the incredible depth of the early, simple, raw, recordings. It's possible to innovate without losing the soul.
Please Disregard 2008-06-25
All I can say is if you are new to TBK, listen to ANYTHING else but Attack & Release if you want to get a real feel for them. After loving everything they have put out so far, I cannot listen "cringe-free" through this album. I love Dangermouse, but the old recipe was "IT" for me! Please go back!!!
Two-piece rock band = one piece of plop 2008-06-22
Yawn ... With the exception of Suicide and maybe the Ravonettes, all two-piece rock bands stink.
Get some bass players, do it properly and let's declare this tinny and derivative genre dead. Thank you.
Why You Need This Album NOW! 2008-06-09
A lot of people are saying that this album is too "polished" for a Black Keys project; but I don't hear the "polish," I hear genius. While tracks like "I Got Mine" or "Strange Times" deliver exactly the kind of scorching "attack" the title promises, it's in the album's departures from that familiar terrain that its vision achieves the range of true rock pioneers. The lilting twang and echo of "So He Won't Break" vaguely echoes some great lost gem by surf-rock gods The Ventures, a flutter of piano and xylophone (yes, xylophone) dressing Auerbach's dreamy licks in a rich jewelery of sound. The acoustic and countrified "All You Ever Wanted" exudes the effortless mojo of rock staples like "Sway" or "Torn & Frayed," and the album closes with an absolutely devastating ballad, "Things Ain't Like They Used to Be," a spare and hypnotic gut-wrencher that's bound to show up again on year-end "Top Ten Songs of 2008 lists.
This ain't your mother's rock `n roll-or, then again, maybe it is-and maybe that's why it sounds so fresh. Rock `n roll hasn't sounded this real since the night Keith Richards woke up in a hotel in Clearwater and recorded what he heard in his dreams-the riff that became "Satisfaction." But the point is that Attack & Release embodies as much of the spirit as the soul of rock `n roll, pausing for a slow jam and unplugging the amps whenever the urge strikes, producing work that's as compelling as any driving rocker the Keys have ever put to wax.
Rubber Soul laid the groundwork for this expansion of the band's sound, exploding with the belch and wail of an acoustic guitar ("When the Lights Go Out") that picked up where their idol and bonafide blues god Junior Kimbrough left off. It's no wonder that not even Kimbrough's own widow, Mildred, was surprised when The Black Keys released their neglected but brilliant 6-track EP of electric Kimbrough covers, Chulahoma, an album she endorsed in a recorded telephone call the Keys included on the EP itself (keep listening after the last track.) The unfocused but sporadically entertaining Magic Potion continued this nod to experimentation with the mildly psychedelic "You're the One," a ballad in which you can almost hear the echo of Tommy James's "Crimson & Clover" somewhere in the distance. But only now have those glimpses of a broader sound blossomed into the full fruit of Attack and Release, the best rock album 2008 is yet to produce, bar none.
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