The Black Keys - Your Touch

With such a long, oft-recited history, from the plantations of Mississippi to the big city bluesmen of the 50s to the scrawny white Londoners via the 70s supergroups and the Detroit garage scene, you'd think we'd be just about sick of straight-up blues rock. The Black Keys are out to show that you'd be wrong, and Your Touch is further evidence. Whatever it is that makes the blues template so alluring, in the Keys' hands it sounds the baddest and best it's sounded since Cream. Rawer than the Stripes and more authentic than the Kills, Your Touch reminds us where it all began. [Nick Mitchell]