Ty Listens to The Black Keys Cover of "Crawling Kingsnake"

This morning while scrolling on the internet I came across some good news for once. Let’s discuss.

I’m a big Black Keys fan. They’re my second favorite band behind Run the Jewels. I’ve seen them live more than any other band. I found out about them when MTV2 used to play videos and they performed on an awards show I came across in 2002. And I’ve stayed with them ever since. They’ve achieved a decent amount of fame and now they’re in a situation where they can do the music they want when they want. So when I saw they have a new record of old blues covers coming out next month I was pumped.

As I said, this was good news. When I saw the musicians they would be covering on the record I got even more excited. They said on the press release that they were doing covers of people who inspired them to do the music they now make. Guys like John Lee Hooker, RL Burnside and Junior Kimborough, amongst others, are who The Black Keys will be covering on this record. That’s great. It was also great to read this press release because they announced that they had released the first single off the new record today. I immediately switched over to Spotify to listen.

The song is called “Crawling Kingsnake”, which I believe is a John Lee Hooker cover. I absolutely loved this song from the first note. I am not familiar with the original version but I will soon be after some more listens to the Keys version. This is The Black Keys that I love. I love everything they do, but this stripped down version, the original version of just Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach, that’s what I adore. That’s the band I fell in love with. All the records they did as just the two of them, those are the best, especially “Thickfreakness”. And this version of “Crawling Kingsnake” has major “Thickfreakness” vibes. From the dirty guitar to the reverb to the chaotic yet somehow put together drum parts to Auerbach’s gravelly voice, it’s all there and it’s all amazing. I have listened to this song about six times already, both versions I might add. They have the unedited and edited version right now. There is no cursing, it’s just the length of each version of the song. I prefer the six minute version. The version where you can hear the two of them talk before they start the song. It is so damn good. To hear them sound like this again, to go back to the early days, it just made me so very happy. I was, and still am, ecstatic. Not that I ever fell out of favor with them, but the fuller band took just a teeny tiny bit out of their aura to me. So when they strip it down, when they go back to basics, it gives me the same vibes I had when I first heard them.

I highly recommend people go listen to this track and then the album when it comes out. Black Keys fans will dig it, blues fans will like it, garage rock fans will enjoy it and newer Keys fans will hear the original version of this band for the first time. I cannot say enough good things about this song. It gets all the thumbs up that it can have. I cannot wait for the record, but for the time being, I’m going to go listen to the new single about 5 dozen more times. I suggest you do the same.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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