“These blood-red eyes don’t see so good / But what’s worse is, if they could / Would I change my ways?”
So sings Dan Auerbach on “These Days,” the closing track from the Black Keys’ excellent 2010 album, Brothers. As Auerbach sings, achingly, slide guitar weeps, bells chime, bass guitar thumps along woefully, cymbals splash, and floor toms rumble. It’s a beautiful few moments of R&B-inspired pop music, flooded with heartache.
I’ve never heard it sound as good—dynamic, detailed, present, and powerful—as it sounded yesterday, through Totem Wind Design loudspeakers driven by a Rogers High Fidelity EHF-200 integrated amplifier (in fat, forward ultralinear mode), with a Bel Canto front end (e.One DAC3.5VB and CD3 transport) and Kimber BiFocal XL speaker cables and Hero interconnects.
Sounding equally captivating was the Well Tempered Amadeus turntable, spinning “Angels” from the XX’s new album, Coexist, the system communicating every drop of truth and longing in Romy Madley Croft’s voice.
