Posts Tagged ‘Danger Mouse’
The Black Keys “Brothers” Album Review
With uber-producer Danger Mouse on board for 2008’s Attack & Release, The Black Keys made one of the best albums of that year – and probably in recent memory. The Black Keys were making good music before Danger Mouse entered the fold, but he added another dimension to the band’s traditional, straight-up blues rock formula by incorporating psychedelic touches and little instrumentation flairs here and there. Basically, he fleshed out their sound and made it a little more dynamic.
On Brothers, however, Danger Mouse only manned the production board for one song, the album’s first single “Tighten Up” – leaving the Keys, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, to handle the rest of the load themselves. So right off the bat, the first question in my mind was whether they’d be able to live up to the bar they set with their last album.
To my delight, Danger Mouse was not the vital ingredient to the Keys’ reinvented sound. The guys do a swell job on their own again, and Brothers can confidently stand toe-to-toe against anything in the group’s catalog.
It’s a shame that Broken Bells had to release their debut album on the same day that Gorillaz dropped their latest, Plastic Beach (which I reviewed yesterday).
That’s because, as I’ve mentioned before, Broken Bells sounds strikingly similar to their cartoon counterparts much of the time, but without the wild eccentricity and excitement. Those comparisons are inevitable since one half of Broken Bells is Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, who produced Gorillaz’ epic album Demon Days. The omnipresent analog synths that are Gorillaz’ trademark are present here as well, which usually leaves the singers as the only major difference between the two groups.
But that’s a significant difference. Whereas Damon Albarn plays off his hushed, melancholic croon in Gorillaz, James Mercer, of the Shins, adds a greater range to the styling of Broken Bells.
But Broken Bells is not a rip-off of Gorillaz and deserves to be judged on its own merits.
Broken Bells: Gorillaz Jr.?
Broken Bells, the new group made up of Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse) and The Shins’ James Mercer, will be releasing their debut self-titled album on March 9.
They have two songs from the album, “Vaporize” and “The High Road,” streaming over at their Myspace page. iTunes is also offering “The High Road” as their free single of the week, so go grab that.
Given that Burton has worked with Gorillaz in the past, producing their acclaimed album Demon Days, it’s no surprise that those influences come on strong in this project as well. In fact, “The High Road” sounds almost exactly like a Gorillaz track, only with Mercer singing instead of Damon Albarn. And that’s not exactly a bad thing, since Demon Days pretty much rocked. The main difference is that Broken Bells doesn’t seem to be embracing the whole electro-dance aspect of Gorillaz’ music, focusing instead on the moody, quirky part.
Track list for Broken Bells after the jump: