Dan Auerbach Adds More Hues To His Blues

Fans of The Black Keys’ two-man fuzz-blues stomp will find an easy, familiar home in Keep It Hid, the first solo album from Keys vocalist/guitarist and chief songwriter Dan Auerbach. Despite recording the album with a full band (including many of his friends and family), Keep It Hid is a more subdued offering than the thumping electric groove-rock masterpiece that was Attack & Release, the fifth offering from Auerbach and his drummer/producer partner in Keys Patrick Carney. Mixed by Auerbach’s good friend Mark Neill at Neill’s Soil of the South studio, it’s a well-mixed concoction of bluegrass, R&B, country-folk and just the right dose of that familiar, fuzzy psychedelic blues rock that drew us to his world to begin with.

Dan wrote most of the songs for the album as a way to indulge his varied tastes while working on and touring in support of Attack & Release with the Keys. “I wanted a live, organic sound,” he said recently of the creation process behind the album. “Nothing was too plotted or planned, just a lot of spontaneity.”

The opening track, Trouble Weighs A Ton is a soothing, fragile acoustic-driven track that features Auerbach’s uncle James Quine on guitar and backing vocals- fitting, given that he was the guy who taught the future Key how to sing and play guitar in the first place.

The simple strum of Whispered Words sounds more like a Modest Mouse outtake than anything on this side of the blues line, but the reins come off in the final minute, and the song that Auerbach’s father conceptualized takes proper flight, undoubtedly doing Dad proud. Speaking of honoring the old school, there’s a real Crimson And Clover-meets-Since I Don’t Have You feel to Real Desire, complete with droning bass and billowing organs, while the harsh rhythm guitar, electric mosquito lead and step beat in Mean Monsoon provide a haunting Southern backdrop for a very Cold War Kids-esque vocal design that fits the piece perfectly. 

The title track takes a sharp left from the other 13 tracks on the album by utilizing a drum machine under the live drums, adding a mechanized percussion layer that works well with Auerbach’s fuzzed-out melody. The slow-soul magic is at work here, joining The Prowl and the understated, bluesy gem of Heartbroken In Disrepair as tracks that could fit anywhere on the last two Black Keys records. The latter’s solo rides along the track’s easy vibe, but threatens to let loose at any moment, and it’s all the better that it never quite does. Sometimes what you don’t say can be just as important as what you do.

The lurching groove of I Want Some More brings a return of the stompy funk and fuzzed out vocals more familiar in the Keys’ world, but the riff magnetics pull back before taking over entirely, letting a little more light in. The country twang of the poppy ode-to-the-last-straw My Last Mistake sounds much less mournful than the lyrics suggest: Separate towns, separate hearts / Distant love from distant parts / Every man plays the snake / Bound to make his last mistake…

The variety on Keep It Hid is thick and wide, but each track finds its own thread of connectivity in the soul that creeps through. Much like Thom Yorke’s The Eraser or Eddie Vedder’s solo journey on the Into The Wild soundtrack, Keep It Hid honors the larger musical palette of the artist’s day-job band without hiding behind it, instead exploring the outer reaches of their own creative impulses. 

From the jive-talkin’ hand-clap party groove of Street Walkin (see above) to the weary longing of album closer Goin’ Home (I’ve spent too long away from home / Did all the things I could have done / gone are the days of endless thrills / I know I’m not the only one), there’s never a sense that Auerbach is stepping outside himself. It’s a gem for any fan of his previous work- a glimpse inside the world of a blues-rock powerhouse when he punches out, heads home and digs into his record collection with some friends.

Keep It Hid
February 10, 2009
Nonesuch Records

1. Trouble Weighs A Ton
2. I Want Some More
3. Heartbroken, In Disrepair
4. Because I Should
5. Whispered Words
6. Real Desire
7. When The Night Comes
8. Mean Monsoon
9. The Prowl
10. Keep It Hid
11. My Last Mistake
12. When I Left The Room
13. Street Walkin’
14. Goin’ Home

Dan’s about to begin a national tour with opening acts Those Darlins and Hacienda, the latter also serving as Auerbach’s backing band.

Dan Auerbach’s 2009 Tour Dates
Feb 28 • 9:30 Club Washington DC, Washington DC
Mar 1 • Paradise Club Boston, Massachusetts
Mar 2 • Music Hall of Williamsburg Brooklyn, New York
Mar 3 • Bowery Ballroom New York, New York
Mar 5 • Beachland Ballroom Cleveland, Ohio
Mar 6 • Metro Chicago, Illinois
Mar 7 • First Avenue Minneapolis, Minnesota
Mar 10 • The Showbox Seattle, Washington
Mar 11 • Wonder Ballroom Portland, Oregon
Mar 13 • Bimbo’s San Francisco, California
Mar 14 • El Rey Theatre Los Angeles, California