The artwork for the new Black Keys album features a black LP cover, emblazened with the words “This Is An Album By The Black Keys. The Name Of This Album Is Brothers”. A bold move, but probably all you really need on a cover! OK so there’s a million arguments there about the overall package being part of the artist endeavour that is releasing a body of work, but I guess in this instance the Black Keys are opting to let the music speak for itself.

Brothers comes off the back of the duo’s career best seller, Attack & Release, produced by Danger Mouse. DM only features once on this follow up, on the track “Tighten Up”, with the band chosing to produce the rest themselves. Expect business as usual, a dirty, fuzzbox blues rock work out that Jimmy Page would be proud to call his own!

Brothers was primarily cut in Muscle Shoals, a setting that turned out to have more in common with the Akron, Ohio factories where the Black Keys used to record. The place was desolate, the town depressed, so once again the duo slipped into a world all its own. They did additional recording at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound System in Akron and The Bunker in Brooklyn. The album was mixed by engineer Tchad Blake, a veteran of sessions with Los Lobos, Pearl Jam and Peter Gabriel. Says Carney, “The way he approaches mixing is the same way we approach making music. Respecting the past while being in the present..”