The Black Keys’ Delta Kream

Recorded over two days in about 10 hours at Dan Auerbach’s own Easy Eye Sound, it is tempting to view Delta Kream, The Black Key’s tenth album, as the spiritual successor to 2006’s Chulahoma: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough. While true in substance, a lot has changed for guitarist/singer Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney over the intervening 15 years. Following an intentional expansion of their sound that lead to the commercial breakthroughs of Brothers and El Camino, The Black Keys have emerged as one of the last great American rock bands, introducing a new generation of music listeners to the visceral power of the blues while producing a multitude of projects for legends new and old that include Michelle Branch, Cage the Elephant, Dr. John, Ray LaMontagne, Lana Del Rey, Tennis and others. Delta Kream finds the duo gracefully transitioning into their role as musical interlocutors and elder statesmen, sporting a respectful, if not revelatory, collection of covers in the Mississippi hill country blues tradition flanked by R. L. Burnside's guitarist Kenny Brown and Junior Kimbrough's bassist Eric Deaton. Some are familiar, such as Junior Kimbrough's "Do the Romp" (titled "Do the Rump" on their 2002 debut album The Big Come Up), and others, like their fiery take on Burnside’s “Poor Boy a Long Way from Home,” swampy reading of Ranie Burnette’s “Coal Black Mattie,” or muzzy, reflective rendering of Kimbrough's "Walk with Me" channel the energy of The Black Keys at their gritty, lo-fi best. Although not all of the album’s material is as spirited, it’s clear that these songs continue to mean a lot to Auerbach and Carney. That is reason enough to lend The Black Keys’ newest project your ear.

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If you like Delta Kream, check out:

• Yours, Dreamily by The Arcs

• Super Session by Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper & Stephen Stills

• Sharecropper’s Son by Robert Finley

• Introducing… by Aaron Frazer

• The Angels in Heaven Done Signed My Name by Leo Welch