Magic Potion

 Akron, Ohio. It’s dead easy to picture the stale smell and ominous waters of the Mississippi, even though it’s almost half a continent away. Life and time have ground to a halt here. No work. No prospects for young people full of hope. Nothing at all, just disappointment, bitterness and a big dose of pain that people have to wrestle with every single day, fighting to at least partly push it out of their minds and soften the blow. You can also give in to it. The perfect environment for heartfelt, honest, rock-solid blues. Plenty of more or less famous poets of the delta blues have already proven as much. And it’s exactly this kind of place the Akron duo The Black Keys come from, serving us a measure of their magic elixir in the form of the album Magic Potion. They brewed it all by themselves in their very own basement studio. This is already the fourth gift for all lovers of that slightly melancholy but still sharp, raspy, weathered yet no less timeless musical formula of bluesy music-making.

People compare them to those better-known oddballs called The White Stripes. Probably because they, too, stripped the classic band lineup down to two members. And that’s plenty if you’ve got something to say. If you feel rhythm and melody. It’s not enough if you’re hollow and looking for a way to strike elegant poses and fire off salvos of nonsense, showboating and technically polished empty licks. This time The Black keys show us that the saying “less is more” holds true as hell. From the first chord and the first hit of drumsticks on skins and cold cymbal metal, they radiate uncompromising rawness – a tender taste of fragility that bites down to the bone. The fourth act of this epic journey of Akron’s hopefuls opens with the song ‘Just Got To Be’, which hints at what’s in store: fuzz guitars and punchy drumming that doesn’t swear by speed, but where every note and every hit is there for a reason. The singer sings so honestly, and even though he’s not setting any new records for vocal range, his voice, which sounds like it’s coming from a black throat (by the way: The Black Keys are really two white guys who, in the name of heart and soul, hung up absolutely everything – college, jobs, worn-out relationships – and marched boldly into the unknown with instruments in hand to try their luck), is a true balm and the glue that binds the songs into one confessional whole. ‘Your Touch’ sings of yearning for physical closeness in true White Stripes fashion, a lament of lost love, loss, hopelessness and held-back tears. All of that gets elegantly condensed in the ballad ‘You’re The One’, which rocks the album into a haze of narcotic intoxication right from the start. ‘Just A Little Heat’ kicks off with a riff that sounds like it came out of Tommy Bolin’s bag of tricks. Soon a Hendrix-style melody joins in, along with building tension and a repeat of the opening phrase, which you’ll soon find yourself unwittingly whistling all day long. ‘Give Your Heart Away’ keeps following the red thread of Hendrix. ‘Strange Desire’ is a peculiar, unexpected step outside the confines of the blues, once again soaked in borrowed patterns and fragments from Jimi, but The Black Keys still come across as original and weave their own sonic cluster of feedback, floating melodies and the gentle tapping of sensual drumming in disguise. The record carries on through similar mood swings, cutting like a rusty, blunt knife that’s just been sharpened again. All the way to the big finale, which could easily have been the start of the record too – the song ‘Elevator’, a return to a state of bluesy melancholy. The mist around the Mississippi settles in once more. Time to sit on the porch out front. Time for another beer and quietly working out whether life has hit rock bottom.

The record Magic Potion, despite the fact that in places it reminds you a bit too much of some lost song from the fingers of dead sound innovators, is good. At moments they remind me of another quiet rebel who often gets overlooked – Ben Harper. Times have changed. The blues survived. In new clothes, with new additions, but with a totally familiar taste that sits just right. No other music has the feel and rhythm of the blues. It feeds rock and all its later offshoots. It’s the foundation and the main well for understanding American Southern culture and mindset. I don’t need to go to Akron to see the landscape unfold in the palm of my hand when I close my eyes and ponder while listening. The production is pretty raw and unpolished and doesn’t follow today’s crystal-clear trends, but that’s exactly what gives the album its wonderful flavor. The craving for sentiment is nicely satisfied. But this is by no means some kind of breakthrough record. The Black Keys are simply oddballs who aren’t willing to bow to the demands of modern trends. They play music that’s heartfelt, honest, melancholy, and in their own way they manage to survive through all of it, getting by on music, which is their one and only mission. The chemistry is there. The magic potion went down the hatch without any major problems. It only woke up a craving for more…