She always loved him more though.

Didn’t matter if you were there first, or if she said she was ready to settle down with you.

She always loved him more, was always meant to, because that’s the way it goes, and there’s nothing you could’ve done, nothing, nothing…

You always loved him more, didn’t you?

You’d never expect traditionally-based blues duo The Black Keysto provide the rocking dance soundtrack to the Australian summer. Sure they’ve produced some catchy floor fillers in the past, but it’s a different thing altogether to create an ambience of sound that is equally suitable for sweaty dancing in a club and laying around the pool when it’s too hot to move.

But upon hearing single Lonely Boy, with it’s edgy riff, bright keys backing, “woah” based chorus that anyone can sing along to, and a foot stomping beat that will get you up and dancing for weeks of hot days, you realise they might’ve cracked it. Coupled with a viral video hit featuring their trademark humour, the tune gave the Keys the exposure and the goods to get people very excited for their latest release, El Camino.

Thankfully, those who bought the album off the strength of the single will not be disappointed. In fact, it might be better than is expected from the Keys.

The most significant improvement from previous albums is just how complete the sound now is. The Keyshave always strictly adhered to a live recording process to properly keep the bluesy feel. But the single electric guitar and drums have always felt a little empty in the big, echoey studio. On El Camino, the addition of synth chords to cover some of the silent holes, and a steady bass riff on most tracks, really helps to fill out the sound. Contrasted with Howlin’ For You (from Brothers), where the electric guitar riff, backed only by a drum beat, felt skinny and lonely, sustained key chords in the background of here add an ambience fans might not have noticed they were missing, whilst also really complimenting the summer feel.

So how can this album be such a huge step away from the style they’ve come to define, and yet also be such big step forward?

For one, the Keys haven’t forgotten how to pace a song. Gold on the Ceiling carries you perfectly until bringing out a big, gutsy chorus at just the time. Its contrast is the very next track, Little Black Submarines, which starts as a morose, longing, and softly spoken ballad, before transitioning into a big guitar solo, and finally bringing on the full band at the end. Along with Run Right Back, they’re all as boisterously energetic and danceable as the headline single.

At the other end, Stop Stop and Nova Baby cruise along like a chilled car ride to the coast, before Mind Eraser burns itself out nicely to finish the album when the sun is setting and everyone is too hot and bothered to dance anymore.

But such is the contrast between the two halves of the album, you feel like you want to start it all over again, mainly to revisit the energetic beats at the start in order to get the warm night off to a ripping start. El Camino feels like two albums with completely different vibes cut it half and stitched together in the middle. If you went to get a drink at the mid way point, you’d come back and suddenly find everyone tanning and stoically ignoring your questions as to what happened to the dance floor.

There aren’t too many albums which are honestly appropriate for such contrasting situations, and while I appreciate the adaptability, it does leave the album as a whole feeling a little indecisive. Rather than starting on a high and mellowing out nicely towards the end, the album is obviously missing a few songs in the middle to comfortably shift the mood between the two halves.  

Some might also say this contributes to the first few tracks being too frenetic and, from an overall album point of few, uncomfortably crammed altogether in the top end, but this doesn’t really hinder the albums replay-ability. It also doesn’t need the gimmick of suiting two different moods to keep you coming back to it almost too often over the hot months. Make no mistake; overall and each track individually, it is a damn fine music.

That being said, El Camino is a difficult prospect to call for long time Keys fans. Some will happily recognise their favourite aspects of the Keys in a much more complete and entertaining package. Others will malign the loss of the modern blues soul.

Everyone else will love an album that will at times spark you into grooving, and at others seem like a relaxing, chilled breeze.

She came to his room one night, burst through the door unexpectedly. I know that’s always said, but she really, literally did. She was hysterical, crying enough to parch a desert, and she nearly broke through the middle of the door, such was her state.

He was scared. Properly fearful, with his stomach immediately churning in the appropriate way. He had never seen so upset, and he was scared for her, scared for what it might mean for them. What it did mean for them, I should say.

Granted they were both far too stressed, and caught up in their own goings on. It had been a rough week, and it all just boiled over. Things weren’t going as well as they should have been between the two of them. The relationship was in trouble, waiting for the weakest of excuses to collapse in upon itself.

Although it wasn’t, not really. It was in a bit of a trough. Relationships have ups and downs, everyone knows that. Except you forget that you didn’t always know that. You remember that you had to learn that somehow. This was really just a low moment in everything, a rough patch they had to work through. They should’ve worked through. But as was mentioned, she was in hysterics, and it was all quickly spiralling to an End.

It seemed perfectly feasible that she needed a break, that she could request a little time off. Later, it would be revealed as not so simple. He would definitely feel betrayed, and she might have felt a little guilty. There was definitely more at work behind her tears.

But for now, he gave her a week to recover. She took it gratefully and fled.

It was the longest week of his life.

At the time, he described it as absolute hell. This proved to be a ludicrous overstatement, given what was to come after The One Big Ending. But at the time, without anything for comparison, this was the worst of his time on earth so far.

It was the waiting that nearly killed him. The anxiety wrecked his nerves, his appetite, his concentration. He knew he had done wrong and so dreadfully wanted to fix it, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything, and all he wanted was to do something.

She gave him no choice but to wait, until finally, she called him, exactly a week after the fight.

She called him early the next morning.

He was groggy and caught very much unawares. Fortunately the call was short. Or perhaps unfairly, since a longer talk might’ve brought him to his senses.

-          Can I come over?

-          Sure

She hung up promptly

He thought nothing of it, rolled over and tried to claw a few more precious seconds of sleep before she interrupted.

But let me tell you this: if you ever get a call like that, at a time like that, that ends like that, you better spring out of bed. Your fight or flight response better kick in immediately, in fact faster than that. It better fill you with adrenalin, because you are going to have to fight for your life.

And he didn’t even know it.

It was so cruel to execute him like that, when he didn’t realise what was coming. It was like shooting a deer that walked up and placed its head against the barrel. He trusted her, happily came towards her, thinking she had promised to come back to him.

She came through the door quietly this time, meekly. Embarrassed. She sat down beside his bed, hugging her knees under her chin.

He didn’t get out of bed, but instead rolled over to face her. He could tell immediately something was wrong. She looked grey, which is a stupid, impossible way for people to look. But when he remembered looking at her through half awake eyes, she looked like how an entire city felt when it was covered with cloudy skies. It was more than one persons misery, but it was also a washed out, tired kind of acceptance.

Something triggered in him then, but still not enough. The connections were still trying to fire in his brain, to spark that one important realisation. But for the moment, all he could tell was that she was upset.

He reached out and tried to hold her hand, but she shrugged him off. When he asked what was wrong, it was a simple, brutal sentence that brought him undone.

“I just don’t feel it anymore.”

She sat there for a long while afterwards, frozen in silence. Then she got up and walked out.

Forever.

Those were the last words ever spoken between them. They’d run into each other a few times more, but always look away sheepishly.

As for him, he lay there, silently staring at the ceiling, dying for days.

Lying on my back, sporadically rocked by waves, the warm summer breeze brought washed over me the sound of children laughing.

I don’t mean that in a “life is good, and we sometimes forget it” kind of way, I mean it in a “life is absolutely crammed full of amazing things, and adults sometimes forget it” way.

Kids laugh with wonderment when they see the ocean. In this case, that is not a metaphor. There is literally wonder and amazement in their laughter, and you can easily see it pouring out of their wide eyes as well. Adults never laugh with wonder. Certainly they can still be amazed, in fact that’s probably why they go travelling; to relive that sense of amazement they possessed as a child, when everything was new. But their natural, unchecked reaction to being amazed is not to laugh happily. Somewhere along the line, we all become too cynical, or maybe too bitter, to be overcome with emotion like that. Instead, we reserve our amazement, like it’s too undignified to be impressed with anything.

That’s why adults, especially old people, are so genuinely happy when they see young children splashing around in the shallows like they’ve just won the lottery. Actually that’s a bad analogy. Why does a kid care if they’ve won the lottery? They’re impressed by a giant body of water.

Anyway, adults aren’t smiling because they’re looking back fondly at the first time they saw the ocean (no one can really remember that, we were all too young). Instead, adults are enjoying just how much a kid can enjoy such a simple pleasure as this. Adults enjoy unadulterated enjoyment.

Which is strange when you imagine if you were seeing the ocean for the first time. At that age, the biggest body of water you’ve ever seen is the bathtub, and suddenly, it’s like solid earth suddenly stopped existing, and was overcome but all this water. You can’t touch the porcelain sides of the ocean, so to a kid, it’s limitless. And the waves! They smash into a tiny body, knock it over and drag it away like it’s nothing. The noise too! It’s a big, angry, crashing, threatening noise. It’s the sound the grim reaper plays when he’s screaming towards you, hands outstretched. If anything is a threat to your existence, and surely kids must have a survival instinct built in somewhere, then this is a monster that you should definitely not go near. Logically, the ocean should scare a kid absolutely shitless.

And some kids it does. But for most others, somehow, when dad’s got you by the arms, helping you jump the waves like superman, it’s not scary, but the greatest thing you’ve ever see. You lick your arms and it’s salty. Bizarre! And the water is moving. You’re ankle deep, then suddenly it runs away, and the sand is all squishy. But then it’s back again! What could possibly be making it do that? Incomprehensible! Yet all this strangeness contributes to it being the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen in your entire life.

So kids laugh, and there is wonder in their voices. And adults smile, pleasantly baffled at how someone could be so amazed at something so simple, yet secretly wishing they hadn’t somehow lost that ability themselves. The kid’s parents smile, knowing there’s probably few other things they can do for their children that will compare to introducing them to this amazing feature of the world. And old people smile, a happy/sad mix of the mouth that is the pleasant stirring of their withered hearts at this simple, childish joy, with the simultaneous realisation, all too late, that they should’ve spent more time being amazed at life, as they hear the grim reaper playing a big, angry, crashing threatening symphony somewhere close by, and maybe they shouldn’t be at the beach anyway, because they’re too old and they’re grossing everybody out.

But lest this end on a morbid note, and we all remember that amongst all that enjoyable amazement, Dad also decided to teach us the lesson that the world could be cruel, and let us get smashed by that wave which towered over our three-foot-high selves, remember; kids don’t immediately freak out when this happens. They sit on their ass in the sand, soaked inside and out, and stare wide eyed out at the ocean.

They’re amazed at what just happened. They’re stunned into silence at another crazy new experience they’ve had today. They don’t know what it was, but boy, it was something. And it was truly unique, and deserves their respect and awe.

Then they realise they just nearly died, and should probably start crying.