The Black Keys

The Black Keys’ new tribute to the Mississippi juke-joint bluesmen who inspired their music “percolates with a respect for the source material,” said Matt Collar in AllMusic.com. The Ohio-bred garage rockers add “lo-fi swagger” to 12 classic tunes by such hill country legends as Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside, and Mississippi Fred McDowell. “Swampy, yet vibrating with a dreamy psychedelic quality,” the opener, “Crawling Kingsnake,” exemplifies the album’s “laconic and acidly textured” sound. “Something feels off,” though, “since the renditions here rarely live up to the originals,” said Kory Grow in Rolling Stone. Delta Kream’s secret weapon is slide guitarist Kenny Brown, who worked with Kimbrough. “But even at its best,” this hastily recorded collection sounds like a compilation of bonus tracks. True, the album can’t replicate the “dangerous backwoods stomp” of hill country blues, but “it comes awfully close,” said Hal Horowitz in AmericanSongwriter.com. “If Keys fans are encouraged to explore the originals, this project will have accomplished its mission.”