Black Keys Debut Piercing ‘Bullet in the Brain’ on BBC
The Black Keys debuted “Bullet In the Brain,” a new song from their upcoming eighth album Turn Blue, during a live session for Zane Lowe’s BBC Radio 1 show. You can take a listen to a radio rip of the cut below, which opens with Dan Auerbach cooing over a simple guitar progression before drummer Patrick Carney kicks down the door and leads the band into a swooning blues groove that soon bursts into something far heavier.
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With a verse anchored by a sturdy, funky baseline and Auerbach’s lyrics about a hypnotizing, numbing relationship, as well as a boisterous chorus sliced by a stirring synth line, “Bullet In the Brain” fits the psychedelic mold of Turn Blue also heard on the title-track and “Fever.”
The Black Keys also debuted the new video for “Fever” Thursday. In the clip, Auerbach plays a sweat-drenched televangelist preaching the gospel of rock and roll to an enraptured audience while his partner-in-crime, Carney, nods and claps vigorously (and sneaks a few sips of booze as well).
The Black Keys recorded Turn Blue in Los Angeles, Michigan and Auerbach’s Nashville studio, working once again with co-producer Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton. After a few false starts, the pair found their grove after concocting the epic, seven-minute “Weight of Love,” which took Auerbach and Carney out of the mindset of writing singles. “After that, it was like, ‘We can do whatever we want — it’ll be all right,'” Auerbach recently told Rolling Stone.
Turn Blue is out on May 13th, and the Black Keys are set to play Saturday Night Live a few nights prior on the 10th.