The Black Keys - Magic Potion

Genre rock Publisher Nonesuch Records External Links Official The Black Keys Website Official Nonesuch Records Website

[Editor's Note: I must apologize to Ian Pointer for not running this before the freaking holidays. A thousand mea culpas to you, Ian - Sincerely, Brett Hickman, Managing Editor, Static Multimedia]

As a British citizen, I must point out that we don't celebrate Thanksgiving, and Advent is still a week away. So holiday cheer is still a little thin on the ground. I'm not sure whether this causes me to look upon Ohio-based The Black Keys's album harshly, but it definitely could be a factor. Magic Potion is one of those records that believes the world stopped at Altamont in 1969. And, well, damn, it's 2006. Which is not to say that there should be a Logan's Run-esque culling of any record that isn't a glistening shimmering wonderland sprinkled with jetpacks, skin-tight gold-lame' outfits, laser pistols and an army of invading robots, but at the same time, we would have looked rather quizzically at a skiffle record released in 1986, wouldn't we?

BUT!, I hear you say. BUT! BIG GINORMOUS RIFFS! Well, yes. However, it all tends to blend together in a manly mist of testosterone; songs like "Just Got To Be", "Strange Desire", and yes, the so-sixties-it-hurts "Goodbye Babylon" coalesce into a chunky, solid, gas-guzzling, Detroit-leaning monster. It has its appeal, to be sure, but you're wondering when the next oil crisis is going to come and make it extinct. And then you realise that was several decades ago.

Still, as archaeology experiments go, it's infinitely preferably to Sting on his bloody lute, so we should be grateful for small mercies, I think.