The Black Keys

El Camino {Press}

"Tremendous, hook-laden, all-killer-no-filler, by some distance the most powerful, compelling rock album of the year."

"They sound like a band who think they've made the year's best rock 'n' roll album, probably because that's exactly what they've done."

"Over 10 years and seven albums, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney have turned their basement blues project into one of America’s mightiest bands … El Camino is the Keys’ grandest pop gesture yet, augmenting dark-hearted fuzz blasts with sleekly sexy choruses and Seventies-glam flair."

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"The Black Keys sealed their ten-year ascent—from a pair of hard-working aces, cutting heavy-attitude fuzz-box blues under basement and abandoned-factory conditions in Akron, Ohio, to the best young classic-rock band in America—with a tight and feisty display at New York’s Webster Hall."

"This is Their Moment—that remarkable time when a great band is about to hit life-changing paydirt."

"El Camino [is] the best record they’ve ever made."

"It’s the most urgent and irresistible music they have ever made; the album’s 11 songs are fast, punchy and loaded with hooks, with traces of glitter-rock stomp, girl-group melodies and surf guitar."

Album of the Month

"This is both a supremely confident record and a ridiculously enjoyable one. A decade into their career The Black Keys have not only outlasted their more celebrated peers but outstripped their own past achievements. El Camino feels like the dawn of greatness."

"…a confident and compelling rock throwdown that manages to upstage last year’s excellent Brothers."

"[The Black Keys] have evolved into an inventive, cogent force, and their talents coalesce with a fiery brilliance in Camino’s 11 tracks."

"The duo simply floors it, taking its blues-funk core on a tire-squealing joyride of crackling hooks, fuzzy guitars, thumping beats and molten grooves ... Producer Danger Mouse tags along to spice up the ride with his usual nimble flourishes, making this road trip even more exhilarating."

"Sometimes, a CD scratches an itch you didn’t even know you had, and El Camino is that record."

"It’s a summer record released in the winter, a dance record that just happens to rock, a rock record that fans of LCD Soundsystem will dig. It’s a party record, a driving down the highway, ‘I’m in love with rock and roll, and I’ll be out all night’ record."

"Really, the only question is whether, this late in the year, this constitutes the best rock album of 2011 or 2012. It’ll probably be both."

"The Black Keys have been gradually evolving from bluesy bar-band scufflers into streamlined rock ravagers. El Camino had to be a record that justified the band’s elevation to the arena circuit, and it comes up trumps with a fat-free set of thumping uptempo rockers and primitive soul stompers […] Meeting the challenge of being the biggest garage rock band in the world head-on."

Instant Classic

"In thrall to grand American traditions of cars-and-girls driving music, El Camino makes its own trip from Rubber City to Music City, touching upon great modern pop music but never losing its grimy old-school identity."

"Moving from their native Akron, Ohio, to Nashville they’ve achieved a sound that’s frequently brighter, more open and eager, less closed-in or doomstruck … El Camino turns out to really be their revved-up getaway car after all. They’ve moved from state to state, on the run to reinvent themselves. It sounds as though they've gotten away with their sly plan."

"Life-affirming. An album that is full of more energy and raw feeling than ever. Perfectly formed, bluesy rock’n’roll anthems that would do the Rolling Stones or David Bowie proud. A perfectly realised, uncontrived album by a band who are doing what comes naturally."

"Magnificent. This is unvarnished rock, primal and exhilarating, songs groaning with their abundance of great hooks, suggesting El Camino may well prove to be the pair’s definitive record."

20 Best Albums of 2011

"The Black Keys go full-throttle, tearing through 11 hard-riffing, deep-boogying tracks in something like 38 minutes … positively brilliant."

"El Camino is a tour de force that should seal their entry into the big league. Big riffs and even bigger hooks recall everyone from David Bowie to The White Stripes. Play loud!"

"Awesomely down-and-dirty … They’ve teamed up with longtime producer Danger Mouse to do what they do best: make a small-room racket that sounds massive enough for a bigger-is-better world."

"El Camino trades the soulful stylings of Brothers for harder-driving, faster-riffing rock & roll."