The Black Keys - Delta Kream

From the outside, the disconnect between The Black Keys the world saw last with 2019’s obscenely slick and vastly overblown ‘Let’s Rock’ and that here, celebrating Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney’s bond formed over the Mississippi blues on an uncharacteristically low-key release, is a vast one. ‘Delta Kream’ sees the pair rework blues canon - largely the work of Junior Kimbrough and RL Burnside, recruiting bandmates Kenny Brown and Eric Deaton respectively - to suitably warm effect. The pair’s love for the material is palpable throughout, Dan’s signature howl swapped for a vastly softer vocal, as if in awe of the material he’s embodying, even on the vibrant ‘Coal Black Mattie’, a song recorded only decades after its inception, or the strutting ‘Do The Romp’. Still, while the studio’s energy is palpable on record, ‘Delta Kream’ is likely to appeal mostly to Dan and Patrick’s fellow blues nerds over anyone else.