My review of the album (from RYM):
On Attack & Release, The Black Keys ditch their trademark gritty, stripped-down blues-rock sound in favor of cleanly produced soul-influenced rock. It’s about time the Keys did something different with their sound, Magic Potion was a boring self-parody of an album which had me wondering if the band was at a dead end creatively. Thank goodness they sought out the creative genius of DJ Danger Mouse, as he helped both mature and transform the sound of the band on this album.
The instrumentation is radically different on Attack & Release than anything the Keys have put out, and Danger Mouse is to thank for that. The synths, banjo, keys, flutes, etc. all aid the albums effectiveness. Plus the layer of backing vocals (on songs like “Strange Times”) Danger Mouse throws in are brilliant additions that give the songs an extra element of transcendency that The Black Keys did not have before. The best example of Danger Mouse’s work on this album has to be “Psychotic Girl.” It opens with an irresistible banjo lead groove. Then later on in the song the haunting backing vocals chime in along with eerie sounds of a keyboard. The song flows along perfectly, and it wouldn’t be nearly as good if it was their traditional guitar and drums form of instrumentation (which goes for a lot of other songs on the album).
All of that being said, the production does not save Attack & Release from being an average album. I have noticed that throughout The Black Keys career, they tend to have 3-4 excellent songs per album and the rest tend to be throwaways. Attack & Release seems to follow that pattern, despite only having 11 songs. “I Got Mine,” “Strange Times,” “Psychotic Girl,” and “So He Won’t Break” are great tunes, but the rest of the album doesn’t do much for me. “All You Ever Wanted” is an incredible boring song, and a terrible choice to open the album. “Same Old Thing” is essentially the same song as “Just Got To Be” off of Magic Potion. Both “Remember When’s” mess up the flow of the album, and the last two tracks are slow, forgettable blues songs. Attack & Release tends to be consistently inconsistent just like the majority of all Black Keys records, which is why I am giving it an Acceptable Rating.
Overall Rating- 3 Stars: Fair
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