Northside Festival announces Interpol, The Black Keys and more!

Interpol and The Black Keys have been announced for Denmark's NorthSide festival next year alongside John Grant, Jose Gonzalez and MO. The three-day 25,000 capacity festival takes is in Aarhus, Denmark and takes place 12th and the 14th of June 2015. There are even direct flights from Stansted to Aarhus start from £20 one way!

The Black Keys cover Edwyn Collins' "A Girl Like You"

The Black Keys are currently in the middle of their massive world tour, and they've even had the time to cover Edwyn Collins' "A Girl Like You. If you were a child in the early 90's then you definitely know this song thanks to your dad.

The Black Keys reveal video for "Weight Of Love"

The Black Keys have unveiled the video for "Weight Of Love", and the duo have recruited a gorgeous Aussie model for the video too, so a bit of eye candy for the fellas! Having recently released their latest album "Turn Blue" earlier on this year they're set to go out on a 5 date jaunt next year around the arenas of the UK.

 
The Black Keys live UK dates
Manchester Phones 4u Arena (February 27)
Birmingham LG Arena (28)
Glasgow SSE Hydro (March 1)
London The O2 Arena (3)
Leeds First Direct Arena (5)

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Weight of Love from Theo Wenner on Vimeo.

The Black Keys announce UK dates

The Black Keys have announced a string of UK dates in support of their latest tour for their highly acclaiemd album, "Turn Blue".

February 27 | Manchester | Phones 4U Arena
February 28 | Birmingham | LG Arena
March 1 | Glasgow | The SSE Hydro
March 3 | London | The 02
March 5 | Leeds | First Direct Arena

Tickets available Friday, July 18th at 9am - check their site for more details. 

Band of Skulls gets remixed by The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach

Dan Auerbach who has produced the new Lana Del Rey album no less has also given Band of Skulls' "Hoochie Coochie" a remix, with a BIG Black Keys sounding twist on it. The track is featured on the band's new "Hoochie Coochie" EP which will be out on July 27th

Band of Skulls' latest album "Himalayan" is out now.

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10 Of The Best Tracks We Heard This Week (w/e May 17th)

We take you (once more) through the BEST ten tracks of the past week, the post is a little late up but none-the-less it's up! Expect the usual in new music, good old faves and free tracks!

Saint Raymond - Ghosts

The new kid on the block entices us into a new track taken off his 'Ghosts EP'. It's bubbling with enthusiasm and yet another catchy guitar riff that joins the dots between Ed Sheeran and Dan Croll.




The Black Keys - Weight Of Love

The first track off the Ohio duo's 8th studio album 'Turn Blue' does everything you want it to. Starting off with a slow and gruelling awakening from the 'El Camino' days, The Black Keys dust themselves off and get back into the swing of things. Howling guitars and those ever so familiar vocals feel like they've never left you.




London Grammar - Darling Are You Gonna Leave Me (N.O.N Remix)

N.O.N has done it once more, this time he's remixed London Grammar and the results are simply one of the best remixes the Rome producer has done so far! What's best about this is that it's a FREE download!




Wolf Alice - Wicked Games (Live)

When the band came down to Cambridge for a show we thought - sweet, Wolf Alice in a small venue, this isn't going to happen again, how cool this'll be - but when the band performed the Chris Isaak cover it just got a whole lot better!




Jonny Stemp - Stay

Jonny stepped it up again once more with his cover of Rihanna's "Stay", we certainly showed you guys it enough over the past week, and for good reasons too! Check it out below and grab a free download of it too!




Gangahr - Fill My Gums With Blood

Following on from the Wolf Alice show trend... Gengahr are a new band to come onto our radar and when they opened for Wolf Alice we were treated to a really laid back approach to soulful rock. This track was certainly a highlight in the set, and you can also check out the track below and grab a free Mp3 of it too!




La Roux - Letting Me Down Gently

So La Roux are back, and the London duo have a new track (as well as an album) too! "Letting Me Down Gently" is a synth laden track that is a far cry from their original material, very spacey with airy vocals accompanying Ellie's vocals.




HATS - 'new song'

Just a 22 second teaser but this shows a glimpse into the duo's next track, it's certainly got us excited, check it out below!




Kyla La Grange - Wrecking Ball

Normally I'd boycott anything with Miley involved, apart from the Arctic Monkeys cover. But when Kyla recorded a cover of the track from her home we thought we'd take a punt and listen to it, well worth it too!




Kasabian - Bumblebee

Kasabian took to Jools Holland's Later show last night to perform some new cuts from their forthcoming album. Here is a brand new track called "Bumblebee" and it sees them back to their best, performing heavier electronic-fused rock.

Album Review... The Black Keys - Turn Blue

Those swirls. Everything’s about those swirls - you can just feel them. Whether they’re to try to brainwash you into listening to The Black Keys eighth studio album (yes eighth!), or whether they’re part of the band’s new make up, they’re everywhere. At points they ooze from woozy guitar riffs, and at others they creep up on you before plummeting you into the deepest lyrics of the bands career, thus far.

‘Turn Blue’ is the eighth instalment from the Ohio duo and it comes off the back of a wave of success from previous album, ‘El Camino’. It was always going to be hard to follow up and ‘Weight Of Love’ demonstrates a slow and gruelling awakening for the ever ageing rockers before getting back into business. Dan Auerbach’s, recent divorce has proved a silver-lining, playing into the hands of the album as heart aching bluesy riffs cry out for a change of tone throughout. In amongst the usual stuff though are glimpses of change. ‘In Time’ wonderfully brings together mesmerising elements of Tame Impala, with a chorus that carries an Amy Winehouse attitude; you can see their sights firmly on those big festival slots to come. Elsewhere, third track ‘Turn Blue’ is a more chilled, lacklustre filler of a song, which sweats off Californian blues. 

The use of synth in lead single, ‘Fever’, sees smatterings of it occurring in ‘Bullet In The Brain’s’ glockenspiel type twist but the synth effect is over done a bit in ’10 Lovers’ as Auerbach’s howls are marred by the sound of someone squeezing the air out of a dog’s chew toy. ‘In Our Prime’ plays around the most though, with it’s bipolar tone between Beatle’s-esque dreamy vocals and full on whirring synth sending you back down the spiral from which ‘Fever’ sent you.

The Black Keys have never quite had that personality factor; the one which instantly connects an artist to their audience. For the first time you could confidently say that they’re working on that part of their game. In ‘Waiting On Words’, the high, close to ear piercing vocals could easily burst into some kind of Jamiroquai funk as Auerbach plays the role of a hopeless romantic once more who’s got too much funk to give a toss. ‘Gotta Get Away’ transfers the funk to David Bowie upbeat rhythms and you can almost, almost imagine the pair ditching their rusty instruments and strutting their stuff up and down a stage. 

‘El Camino’ had the nature of hiding a potential single around every corner. Whilst ‘Turn Blue’ isn’t blessed with the same ability, The Black Keys have gently pushed themselves away from their past seven albums and in fear of their sell by date running out, they’ve stepped towards a more pop-inspired future. Just how long it lives for, we’ll have to see.

The Black Keys - Turn Blue

Out of 10: 6.8/10

By Joshua Shreeve (@JJShreeve)

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Stream The Black Keys' new album "Turn Blue"

Two and a half years after "El Camino" the Black Keys are now one of the biggest rock bands in the world, and their new album "Turn Blue" is about to be released.

You've all heard "Fever" and "Turn Blue" - but now the whole album is streaming at iTunes. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments below!

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Listen to The Black Keys' "Turn Blue"

The Black Keys have unveiled their 'official audio' for "Turn Blue" via YouTube, which you can check out below. It's not like "Fever" in the sense of an up-tempo track but more of the mid-tempo variety. The song features some horns, gentle guitar tones and brooding bass pulses.

Scroll on down to check it out.

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The Black Keys "Fever" gets a 8-Bit remix

If you're really excited for their new album but can't wait for new material to creep out via leaks, live shows and sessions, we have a treat for you!

An 8-Bit remix has been made by a YouTube user, just listen to it below! If The Black Keys were in a Nintendo game it would sound like this!

The Black Keys announce side-project The White Strings

The duo that is  Dan Auerbach (guitar, vocals) and Patrick Carney (drums) are going to be going around as a alter-ego of themselves as The White Strings, the side-project will be the duo playing Ska covers from the late 1980's and 1990's, and will only be playing in venues that hold 300 people or less in an attempt at playing more intimate gigs.

Speaking about the new project Dan has been quoted saying "I'm not going to hide it, we love Ska music and always have done" ... adding ... "nothing at all, look at the date!"

Listen to The Black Keys new single "Fever" here

As promised, The Black Keys have unveiled "'Fever", the first song from their new album "Turn Blue".

Scroll on down to check out the track, with a strange vid too!

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The Black Keys announce new album "Turn Blue"

The Black Keys love to do things differently when announcing new albums. This time around, they recruited Mike Tyson to tweet out a video promoting the album to his 4.1 million followers.

"Turn Blue" is out May 13th. 

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The Black Keys announce new single "Fever"

The new track from the duo will get it's première and release on Monday March 24th, this is the first bit of new material since their 2011 album "El Camino".

There's no word on if an album or even an EP is to come too, but it will be great to hear what they've been up to! But while you wait check out the lovely Jess Greenberg covering "Gold on the Ceiling".

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The Black Keys to headline Open'er Festival 2014

The Black Keys are set to headline the The Heineken Open'er Festival 2014.

The duo are the first band to be announced for the yearly event, which takes place in Gdynia, Poland. Next year's festival will take place from July 2nd to 5th, 2014. Tickets are already on sale at Opener.pl/en and more artists will be announced over the coming months. The Black Keys will be headlining the opening day of the festival on July 2nd.

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Festival Review... Reading Festival, 26th August 2012

The last and final day of the 2012 edition of the Reading Fesitval was met with me feeling a little overwhelmed by the amount of amazing acts on show. But with one more day left I was more than up for making it a great day!

The Cast Of Cheers and Deap Vally were the first two bands I saw on the last day. Both were outside of their home countries yet they both still manage to capture the sparkle of the festival and drag in an amazing crowd. Deap Vally was such an exciting band to see, a Rock'n'Roll version of Blood Red Shoes, these two girls knew how to keep the crowds attention.



After those two bands I want over to the BBC Introducing Stage to get my fix of Un-Signed (and as of yet unknown bands). The Establishment was a band I knew literally nothing about, not my sort of music, they seemed like a re-born version of REM, nice to listen to but didn't capture my imagination. Now Seasfire certainly done that!


Out #1 band to see at the festival we just had to be there (dead centre on the barrier to be exact) for what was our highlight of the weekend. Seasfire played; 'We Will Wake', 'You Won't Be', 'How Do You Sleep', 'Falling', 'Heartbeat' and closed out on 'Hold You Like No Other'. They started off with a standard crowd, just a few people who already knew of them and passers by. After the first song finished I had a quick glance around and saw the crowd effectively double. The vocals were crisp as ever, the guitar riffs as elegant as ever and the drums and samples/keys as smooth as ever. This band definitely know how to play live. I'll be sure to catch them soon!



After Seasfire played it was the turn of the 'secret' act, Chinese whispers, rumours and general guessing had everyone thinking it was Ed Sheeran, no idea why but in the end it was an acoustic set from Two Cinema Club, they played Sleep Alone, 'Undercover Martyn' and 'What You Know' before preparing for their slot on the Radio1/NME stage.

The night ended up with The Black Keys and Foo Fighters playing the Main Stage. The band played a two-and-a-half hour set with a setlist that differed wildly from their 21-song effort at Leeds Festival on Friday this time being 5 songs longer, with a few side attractions like Dave's story of being in Nirvana and his mothers birthday. All in all they were what I expected, stunning, amazing and down right beautiful to listen to!

Reading... I'LL BE BACK!

Morning Parade cover The Black Keys - listen to it here!

The Morning Parade lads are back in the USA now to help promote their début album state side. Three of the members are currently out there doing random shows as an acoustic three-some, Phil is on percussion (usually he is the bass player), Ben on the Keys and Steve doing the vocals and guitar.



They were playing on a radio1045.com live session about an hour or two ago and already an eager fan has posted the song for everyone to hear. They covered the song 'Gold On The Ceiling' which is on the latest Black Keys album.



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