Sharp Black Keys soup up their lo-fi sound

November 04, 2006|Sarah Rodman, Globe Staff

The black keys on a piano are known as sharps, and that's exactly what the Black Keys were at Avalon on Thursday night.

The Akron, Ohio, duo blazed through a set that celebrated several genres without giving short shrift to any of them.

What's most satisfying about the lo-fi yet full-bodied sound that guitarist-singer Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney create is how much subtext can come from such a seemingly small surface area.

The duo is nominally a blues-rock act in the vein of the White Stripes, Zeppelin, Hendrix, and any number of classic blues artists, but Thursday's show revealed the way in which the college rock faves soup up their sound to get the motor purring.

Auerbach's sublime, fuzzed-out guitar riffs and piercingly sweet and skewed solos on tunes such as "Modern Times" and "Your Touch" may be the chassis, but classic pop melodies filtered through a more modern grunge sensibility put the tiger in the tank.

A song like set closer "Have Love Will Travel," a go-go freak-out take on the Richard Berry favorite, would be equally at home on a vintage '60s "Top of the Pops" episode complete with lava lamp backdrop, on '90s alt-rock radio, or in any sweaty blues club today.

While there's a touch of hippie in Auerbach's floppy bangs and herky-jerky moves as he plays call and response with himself, and in the minimalist footlights flashing under Carney, the vibe was less retro than it was timeless on tunes like the swinging "Just Couldn't Tie Me Down."

The pair is also hip to the notion that brevity is their friend, both with specific songs and the show in general, which clocked in at an economical 70 minutes. None of the Keys' songs went far beyond five minutes, and many didn't make it to four. It was just enough time to unleash a flurry of backbeats both intricate and stompingly simple and a few mind-bending licks, and to revel in Auerbach's smoky, drawling musings.

With a similar love of the primal stomp and dark color schemes, the Black Angels opened the show.