Every once in a while, we wonder what happened to rock. Real, gritty, sung-from-the-back-of-a-smoky-bar rock. When did it stop being “in”? When did it steal candy from Brooklyn’s hipsters and get reported to the uncoolness police?

Luckily, we don’t subscribe to such regulations. Good music is good music. And Keep It Hid, the solo debut of Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach, is pure rock indulgence, good music supreme.

You can just see him pouring himself a somber glass of whiskey, sitting out on a Southern porch with his old guitar and a half-smoked cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, trying to unravel the paradox of melancholic anger while thinking of your sister in ways you don’t want anyone thinking about your sister.

With sound that’s part Johnny Cash, part Gnarls Barkley, part Lenny Kravitz’ infamous guitar, Keep It Hid takes real rock by the grimy collar and drags it out of its pop culture slump.

via Very Short List