With the success of Brothers, The Black Keys made selling albums look easy. All they had to was just try. And with the help of the genius marketing and promotion folks of Nonesuch Records and Warner Bros., El Camino has topped Brothers by taking the #2 spot on the Billboard charts.

For some fans of The Black Keys, the success is nauseating. The band was their local crush. But now that girl is a Hollywood actress and any fella can have her. Pardon the poor metaphor, but it’s true. Any person could be listening to The Black Keys now. And it’s tough to think that little HS punks or your clean-cut older sister might be listening to the same music as you. What if somebody’s mom showed up at a Black Keys concert?!

While The Black Keys aren’t on every other commercial now (thank goodness), they are officially a major rock band. And as such, they’ll be on the ears of more people than ever. It’s time for fans to grow up and evolve right along with The Black Keys…which takes us to El Camino.

El Camino continues the Brothers’ sound but into new directions and at faster speeds. The drums smack and attack. The glossed-over buzzed* guitars alternate between anger and excitement. The organ sneaks in sweetly. The keyboard takes a stab at things and pierces through with sweet melodies.

But most importantly, The Black Keys have evolved their song structure. They’ve long professed their love of the groove. Something repetitive, yet hypnotic. On El Camino (with the help of Danger Mouse, no doubt), they toss in numerous twists and turns. It’s as if the fellas actually labored over the details of these tracks. There is considerable focus on the little things like mood-setting intros, Spoon-like outros**, taking the chorus up a notch, backup vocals, bridges, lyrical structure, guitars with earth-damning riffs. The guitars don’t just do solos.  They find an aesthetic, strike a mood, change that mood, give space and then take it away.

It’s the little things.

Take “Lonely Boy,” which features the most danceable Black Keys track ever. The revved guitars jump in with muscle, drums smack you upside the face and that keyboard pierces through it all. Then we’re in the middle of a chilled-out jingle where Dan expresses his addiction to bad girls (a major theme). Whoosh and we’re rocketed up to another level whether the angels sing sweetly behind Dan.

I’ll stop there, I’m no spoiler. But notice how they take a chorus that can be screamed throughout a stadium, and not make it sound like cringe-inducing “arena rock.” The same goes for others like the gorgeous “Nova Baby.”

IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS.

If there’s one place I’ll admit defeat, it’s the lyrics. Admittedly, Dan didn’t put a lot of focus on the meaning, but rather on the way they sounded next to music. Still. The lyrics seem 95% about love lost. Either bad girls he shouldn’t want or girls that don’t know what they want. This theme worked better on Brothers.

But, seriously, if all you noticed was The Black Keys on the radio, if all you hear is a different-sounding guitar, you’ve missed the point altogether. And you deserve to drive the “el camino” on the cover of this album.

*a point of contention for many. I think it works well enough, though I miss the rawer sound.
**basically the unpolished sounds of recording in a studio. Like drums sticks falling to the floor, or someone saying, “That’s a wrap.” It’s the small charms.