The Black Keys

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This season starts retro and then fades to Black

A Modest mid-winter
After a summer and fall that saw local releases at a fever pitch, perhaps it was inevitable we'd see something of a retrenchment for the dark days of winter.
By SAM PFEIFLE | December 28, 2011

The Black Keys | El Camino

Nonesuch (2011)
El Camino has the unenviable task of following up last year's Brothers, but instead of trying to outdo its acclaimed predecessor, it scales things back and cranks up the volume.
By MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER | November 29, 2011

Nicole Atkins finds peace in her darkness

Fade to black
A lot seemed to go wrong for Atkins after Columbia Records released her classic-pop imbued debut Neptune City four years ago. The singer of the newly rechristened Nicole Atkins and the Black Sea watched everyone responsible for getting her signed to a coveted major label deal get fired within months.
By JONATHAN DONALDSON | August 09, 2011

Top 10 records of 2010

From button-down brainiacs to primal chic
2010 was full of riches: plenty of terrific albums came down the pike. There are more pop and rock discs I want to make note of, and maybe I'll do so next week if there's room after listing the year's Top 10 jazz titles.
By JIM MACNIE | December 22, 2010

Music news in brief: Bieber bullied, Kayne weird, Black Keys Pea'd

The Big Hurt
It's been a rough month for our biggest stars: Weezy's in solitary, TI's going back to jail, and now that rascally Biebs has run afoul of the mounties for scrapping with a 12-year-old kid who has since filed a formal complaint.
By DAVID THORPE | October 27, 2010

The Big Hurt: Alternative rock songs

Who Charted?
I got up this morning filled with a furious hatred of alt-rock — I was tossing and turning half the night with Third Eye Blind's "Semicharmed Life" stuck in my head, a torment I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
By DAVID THORPE | October 05, 2010

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Photos: Black Keys at Bank of America Pavilion

The Black Keys live at the Bank of America Pavilion, July 31, 2010
The Black Keys live at the Bank of America Pavilion, July 31, 2010
By JANICE CHECCHIO | August 03, 2010

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The Black Keys | Brothers

Nonesuch (2010)
Once just another guitar/drums garage-blues duo, 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.
By ZETH LUNDY | June 10, 2010

Making a beautiful racket

RHD-RI presents Thunder In the Bucket
Where else could you see the Blizzard of '78 and I, Destroyer share the same stage?
By CHRIS CONTI | January 13, 2010

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King Wilkie | King Wilkie Presents: The Wilkie Family Singers

Dead Oceans (2009)
Today, "risk" is less popular than George W. Bush, but this former Virginia band — now in NYC — are rolling the dice hard.
By TED DROZDOWSKI | April 28, 2009

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Spring cleaning

Three discs you should hear as the weather warms
Without beating around the bush, here are three EPs worth hearing that have been sitting around the office a bit.
By SAM PFEIFLE | March 18, 2009

2008 Listravaganza!

An absolute glut of cruelly reductive Top 10 lists from our dedicated staff of tirelessly enthusiastic writers
We are not at all sick of bands with animal names yet and seem to have a soft spot for Erykah Badu that we kept very hush about all year.
By BOSTON PHOENIX MUSIC STAFF | December 31, 2008

The Big Hurt: Weezy unplugged

Plus Auerbach unbound and Glitter undeterred
Our dream of a post-racial America moved one space closer to "king me" on the checkerboard of terrible metaphors this week
By DAVID THORPE | November 24, 2008

We got everything

Frank Hopkins discovers the American Dream
Hopkins vented with Doomsday . Here he as produced something more measured, and, in the end, more long-lasting.
By SAM PFEIFLE | November 19, 2008

Indie gets the blues

The Gossip, the Black Keys, and the Kills
White rockers generally come by the blues one of two ways.
By MATT ASHARE | April 23, 2008

No clock ticking

Jay Reatard channels his inner problem child
Rock and roll is a 15-year-old. Its makers may succumb to prudence and time but the music remains hormonal, idealistic, kinetic, and furious at anything you can think of to be pissed off about.
By BARRY THOMPSON | April 15, 2008

Beyond the White Stripes

Alison Krauss and Robert Plant lead an Americana resurgence
There’s a blues and old-school R&B resurgence rumbling in the indie-music underground, and it goes well beyond the icky thump of the White Stripes.
By TED DROZDOWSKI | October 30, 2007

Chairmen of the boards

Our critics pick the 14 producers with the fattest, meanest beats
Not unlike Swedish, Tagalog, and Esperanto, music is a language, with its own conjugations and (lewdly) dangling participles.
By PHOENIX MUSIC STAFF | October 18, 2007

John Doe

A Year in the Wilderness | Yep Roc
The seminal American punk band X specialized in songs about love on the skids or on skid row.
By TED DROZDOWSKI | July 17, 2007

The Heartless Bastards

All This Time | Fat Possum
The Heartless Bastards are a Dayton trio fronted by Erika Wennerstrom, an extremely shy woman with the voice of a blues crooner.
By DAVID BOFFA | January 22, 2007

None more black

Droning on with Austin's Black Angels
"The music is our outlet, otherwise we’d all be in the nut house," says Black Angels' Christian Bland. The Black Angels, “The First Vietnamese War” (mp3)
By VICKI G. SIOLOS | November 02, 2006

Clearly Canadian

New mpfrees from a not-so-secret source
The indie label Secretly Canadian, which is secretly based in Indiana and has put out a number of stellar releases by the likes of Songs: Ohia and Scout Niblett, got a publicity boost when Antony and the Johnsons’ SC release I Am a Bird Now won the prestigious Mercury Music Prize last year.
By WILL SPITZ | January 25, 2006