World's hardest working band, The Black Keys, didn't work hard enough on El Camino

The Black Keys are all work. Perhaps they needed a little more time
 for their latest, El Camino, a good record that sounds a little stale.

Is there a harder working band in all of Rockdom than The Black Keys?

No other serious rock band I know of works at the same pace. The blues/garage duo from Akron have released 7 LPs in the last 10 years. In addition, they recorded the superb Chulahoma EP, produced and recorded the Blackroc record, wrote a record for the late Ike Turner and frontman Dan Auerbach had a solo record that very well could have been another Black Keys album.

That work ethic has certainly paid off. If you had told me in 2003 that The Keys would be headlining the Wells Fargo center in Philadelphia in 8 years, I would have said you were nuts. I liked the band a lot, still do, but I never would have guessed theirs was an arena-filling sound.

But now, with El Camino, the band is much more popular, having steadily built a loyal fan base all while slowly evolving from the sparse blues-heavy sound of the early records to a more retro-rocking garage sound complete with regular bass and keyboard sounds, helped plenty over the last few years by collaborations with super producer Danger Mouse, who produced Attack & Release and El Camino. It's been an evolution I've been excited to hear.

Yet, for some reason, I can't help but feeling like El Camino is a slight step backwards. And I'm kind of surprised to write that.

Why? For one, the record is good. It's what we've come to expect from the Black Keys. There are some killer hooks, great-sounding guitar riffs and Auerbach's superb, soulful voice. The opener, Lonely Boy is the perfect kickoff. What more can you ask for? "Sisters" is another awesome track.

But there are some pretty boring moments on El Camino. It's the first time since Magic Potion that I find myself constantly driven to hit the fast forward to the next track. "Little Black Keys" is the perfect example. It begins with an acoustic section that recalls Traffic's John Barleycorn Must Die" before Auerbach stomps on the distortion pedal and cranks out a riff that immediately sounds a lot like a bluesy cover of Tom Petty's "Last Dance With Mary Jane."

And that's the danger The Keys constantly face: They're not slavishly derivative like so much music today, yet they're a band with an aesthetic that's decidedly traditional. At their best, they're able to play with those classic sounds and surprise the listener. Attack & Release's "Strange Times" comes to mind. As does last year's single from Brothers, "Tighten Up." Both songs do great things with rhythm and sound. "Strange Times" has that great, creepy chorus. "Tighten Up''s rhythmic tempo change midway through the song is awesome every time I hear it.

But when the surprise wears off, they can sound like a bar-version of the Steve Miller Band or ZZ Top -- a band with solid rock delivery but it's nothing you haven't heard before. And El Camino, despite its good qualities, the whole enterprise is a collection of B sides that didn't quite make the cut for Brothers. We've heard it before and it was better the first time.

That said, I think El Camino is a solid B/B+ of a record. It sounds great, particularly blasting from your speakers on a road trip, the tempo rarely ever slips too low to be perfect driving music. Perhaps a little more time to season the songs might have helped. They're all fine songs, but They're just not quite as strong as the last two records.