Dan Auerbach, Waiting On a Song – review: ‘A conundrum of country-pop pastiches’

A conundrum: Dan Auerbach releases his latest solo album
Richard Godwin2 June 2017

A conundrum. Would the precise combination of sound-waves on Waiting On a Song be any more charming if they were willed into being in 1975 by some freewheeling cowboy who never received his due?

For this is the aural illusion that Dan Auerbach — the prolific Black Keys frontman — seems to be aiming for with his collection of country-pop pastiches.

It was recorded with guests including Mark Knopfler and Duane Eddy and mood boards conjuring Tom Petty, Glen Campbell and Harry Nilsson. “Songs don’t grow on trees / No, they come out of the breeze,” croons Auerbach on the title track, a finely crafted song about crafting finely crafted songs that really ought to give the whole finely crafted song thing a bad name.

Absent are the lusty rust-belt riffs that make the Black Keys compelling. Absent, too, is anything like the sort of revelation or jeopardy that Mac DeMarco, Father John Misty and M. Ward are bringing to this particular game.

Shine on Me is a particular waste of quavers. Still, there are some nice strings on King of a One Horse Town.

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