The Black Keys began their months-long tour last night following the release of  their latest Nonesuch release, Brothers, and all of the New York gigs and national TV spots that came with. The band kicked off the tour, with Brian Olive supporting, last night at The Depot in Salt Lake City, Utah; shows in Denver, Kansas City, Minneapolis, St. Louis, and Ozark, Arkansas, follow before this first US leg culminates in a midnight set at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, next Friday. The US tour resumes in an upstate New York show with The Flaming Lips in late July, after a run of dates in Europe. For further details, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.

The Salt Lake Tribune, in its review of last night's show at The Depot, says the new album "has added more swagger—in other words, rock 'n' roll—to the duo's foundation of bluesy, R&B-influenced soul explorations, and the band is all the better for it."

As for the live show, Tribune reviewer David Burger says the highlight came when the duo of Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney came together, "displaying the creative interplay they have developed since joining forces nearly a decade ago." Even when just the two were on stage, "dirty grooves were unleashed all night, with the pounding of the drums felt in the floorboards," says Burger.

"Monster riff after monster riff exploded from the stage," he reports, with Auerbach's "muscular, full-bodied hooks that captured attention from the get-go of each stomp. His guitar was not for ambience or texture—it was there to make you move."

Read the complete concert review at sltrib.com.

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Carney spoke with New York magazine for an interview it has titled "Hilarious Black Keys Drummer Patrick Carney on Not Growing a Beard, Damon Dash, and Danger Mouse." That pretty much sums it up; you can fill in the details at nymag.com.

Auerbach spoke with Blurt about the new record and how the band has adapted its music for the live show. Blurt's Hal Bienstock, in his preface to the interview, says, "The Black Keys were always more than the traditional garage-y blues rock, guitar/drums duo they've been pegged as," citing the band's recent "tour de force" album, Attack & Release, and their succeeding hip-hop collaboration, Blackroc. "Their latest, Brothers, was recorded at Alabama's legendary Muscle Shoals studio," Bienstock explains, "and if the band was hoping to soak up the classic soul and R&B that's in the ether there, they succeeded." Read more and hear what Auerbach has to say about it at blurt-online.com.

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All Music's Stephen Thomas Erlewine, in his Brothers album review, concludes that the "great thing about the Black Keys in general and Brothers in particular: the past and present intermingle so thoroughly that they blur, yet there’s no affect, just three hundred pounds of joy." Read the full review at allmusic.com.

Boston Phoenix writer Zeth Lundy writes, in his review of Brothers, that "Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney have moved beyond the garage and the blues and are now making quintessentially American music that’s knee-deep in funky R&B, sorrow-drowning and bigger-things-aspiring, not afraid to steal and reimagine." Read the review at thephoenix.com.

The folks at Justin Timberlake's site call the band "dead good." Contributor Rae Alexandra also calls attention to Auerbach's "gorgeous debut full-length Keep It Hid, which, she says, "has been on our stereos for a year now and we're still loving it ... Along with The Black Keys' hip-hop side-project Blackroc. Let's hope these two live to be a hundred." Read more at justintimberlake.com.

To pick up a copy of the new album and more from the band's Nonesuch catalog, head to the Nonesuch Store.