The Black Keys, El Camino (Nonesuch) **** (From York Press)

The Black Keys, El Camino (Nonesuch) ****

11:23am Friday 20th January 2012 in CD reviews By Mark Stead, mark.stead@thepress.co.uk

IT’S about as original as Stonehenge, the lyrics often lapse into southern-fried nonsense and it slumps in the second half. But if a more infectiously upbeat rock album than the seventh venture from Ohio duo The Black Keys comes out this year, you’ll be lucky.

The band have given their sound a thorough hosing-down, meaning El Camino glints where previous albums growled, and if that makes them less mercurial, it also makes them breezier. Huge delta blues riffs crunch through Lonely Boy, Money Maker and Run Right Back, Little Black Submarines proceeds at Stairway To Heaven pace before exploding two minutes in, and Gold On The Ceiling sounds like The Beatles recruiting Jack White and going glam.

The Keys start to run out of steam towards the end of El Camino, but you’d hardly put them in detention for it given everything they throw at the front of the album, and it’s still several cuts above most of the current guitar crop. El Camino won’t change your life. But it’ll make you smile.