Black Keys

No more White Stripes comparisons. This time the Black Keys retreat from their basement digs, splurge for a pro studio and get one of the hottest producers in the biz. On Attack & Release, Danger Mouse (Gnarls Barkley) helps give the duo just the slightest sheen they've been missing. It's not hip-hop meets Cream by any means; it's an accentuation of the Keys letting out their best inner Hendrix ("I Got Mine," "Strange Times"), pouring through lovelorn Delta blues ("Lies," "Remember When") and playing like hip banjo-pickin' spirits who drank the spiked Kool-Aid ("Psychotic Girl").

Last year, Gnarls Barkley's sound scientist, Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton, asked the Black
Keys to write songs for an album by Ike Turner. When Turner died in December, so did the
project, but its ideas took root. Burton was drafted to produce the next album by the
group from Akron, Ohio, and the result is the Keys' most multicolored set: A psychedelic
hybrid of vintage Southern R&B, brutish British Invasion rock, and country blues t... More >