The Black Keys – Dropout Boogie

 

The Black Keys – Dropout Boogie
Easy Eye / Nonesuch – 2022
Rock, Garage, Blues
Rated: ****

We haven’t mentioned a lot of the albums released by The Black Keys, but Brothers made it to the Number 19 of the second edition of the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown, back in 2010. And henceforth we mentioned El Camino the year after. After that we failed to mention three releases before the new record Dropout Boogie immediately boogied into our hearts. Last year’s Delta Kream was that full on country blues, that Mississippi Hill, those swampy sweaty roots, and this year’s Dropout Boogie takes all that, makes it go boom and makes you want to dance. It seems to reference all those old origins as much as it refers to their older records. Especially those two albums we mentioned; and it all sounds so righteous, suave, and cool. Less gritty perhaps and whole heaps of oxygen to making everything sound spacious and wide. And then they have Billy F. Gibbons join them on a guitar once owned by Mississippi Fred McDowell, which he immediately plugged in and started playing along with that Good Love track, feeling it, feeling it up, making it Dropout Boogie legendary.

(Written by JK)

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Stoner HiVe’s Top 10 Most Listened Albums Last Week…

 

 

Stoner HiVe’s 

Top 10 Most Listened Albums Last Week…

Magic Chicken Fudgetoe
Shun
A Better Tomorrow
Jess And The Ancient Ones
Octohawk
Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships
Hellgrimm
Monster Magnet
Billy Gibbons
Satlan

Stoner HiVe’s Top 10 Most Listened Albums Last Week…

 

 

Stoner HiVe’s 

Top 10 Most Listened Albums Last Week…

Jack Harlon & The Dead Crows
Venus Flycatchers
Hermit’s Weedsom
Shun
Moon Coven
Book of Wyrms
Billy F Gibbons
Year Of No Light
Melissa
Octohawk

Billy F Gibbons – Hardware

 

 

Billy F Gibbons – Hardware
Universal / Concord Records – 2021
Rock, Blues, Surf, Desert
Rated: ****

Wow. Been fortunate enough to see ZZ Top quite a few times live and they’ve always managed to make it all look so damn easy. Looking cool and rocking hard. They’ve got their sound and they’ve got their style and it will never disappoint. But does it surprise? Perhaps not that often. But that’s where Billy Fucking Gibbons comes in! Sure, the first few tracks on the new Hardware album are all good or better yet, the best he ever recorded solo. And then there are even tracks that are better than those from the best ZZ Top period. Just check out More-More-More for instance. West Coast Junkie is the first track he wrote after Austin Hanks and Matt Sorum kidnapped him and took him out into the desert. No, not in the mafia kind of way! And West Coast Junkie has turned into this wild mixture of surf and desert, perfect for a Tarantino soundtrack and for every hot and steamy night out there, where the danger lurks. And where the dirt is just around the corner, as we can hear in his dirty ode to Spanish Fly. And sure, he’s been there before, in the desert you know, with Josh Homme at Rancho De La Luna. But this was a different studio, Escape Studio and a whole new ballgame. But his love for the desert, the mysteries and the danger are obvious and get that extra supernatural delightful treatment with this album and final track Desert High in particular. Since he was unsure of how to sing the lyrics, Matt suggested he’d read them out loud first to see how it would sound. If it really is the first take, as the man suggested, we hear on the record is best left a mystery, but somehow the desert, has made Billy Fucking Gibbons sound like Leonard Cohen, out there near Joshua Tree. The desert knows and the desert does wonders, just listen to the new Hardware album by 71-year old Billy Fucking Gibbons. Wow.

(Written by JK)

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