The Black Keys are, if nothing else, consistent - kind of. On their latest effort, Attack and Release, the boys from Akron, Ohio wholeheartedly maintain their blues aesthetic and dare not search to conquer (much) new ground. They are indeed somewhat of a nostalgic entity for those that pray for the ghosts of John Lee Hooker and Bo Diddley to return. Despite the fact that Gnarls Barkley’s own Danger Mouse sits in the producer’s chair for this album, his experimental/electro influence is hardly felt. He seems to be merely a guide in accenting the Keys’ style with his own interpretation, not changing it. This is not to suggest that everything about The Black Keys’ sound has remained unmoved. There are those little things…

Their 2002 debut, The Big Come Up, captured a rawness that only a product of two guys recording in a basement can. Distorted blues riffs, drums and vocals that sound like they were mic’d through a tree house phone seemed to be the only ingredients necessary for The Black Keys to be unleashed unto the world. Here we are six years later, five albums deep and those elements, for the most part, are still very much present in their musical fingerprint. But there’s more now. “Psychotic Girl” comes equipped with haunting background vocals, a few banjo licks, lead effects and subtle percussive patterns that sound damn close to a helicopter. Flutes on “Same Old Thing”, church organs on “Oceans and Streams” and the pretty voice of bluegrass singer Jessica Lea Mayfield on “Things Ain’t Like They Used to Be” are all a part of this same-but-different experience. Fear not. It works.

Attack and Release is what you would expect from The Black Keys. The flavors mesh, the sounds cooperate and the result is palatable yet still comfortably familiar. The rock/blues purist may find slight disappointment lurking somewhere within the walls of this album, but in this day, the rock/blues purist is an angry old man in a hut with an airtight grip on his phonograph. For the rest of us, it will do just fine.