Again, the early Black Keys records live or die according to what they had to offer beyond their shared sonic territory: a more memorable riff or vocal hook, some structure or arc to the songs or album in question. Rubber Factory is easily the peak of the Black Keys’ first act, a strong realization of the elements they’d built up on The Big Come Up and Thickfreakness — so strong, in fact, that they had all their best ideas for this form here, which is why they wound up with the lukewarm Magic Potion two years later. Named for the fact that it was recorded on the second floor of an abandoned tire factory in Akron that Carney and Auerbach rented, it’s also probably the peak of their initial lo-fi classic rock, the bit of their personality that’d be mythical if they were a more elusive or esoteric band. Despite the fact that it was made in much the same manner as the records that surrounded it in their catalog, Rubber Factory simply feels like more of an album. There’s actual flow to this one, as opposed to a steady stampede of riffs. “When The Lights Go Out” is still amongst their better openers, a piece of ominous apocalypse blues that finally showed them mixing it up a bit with the song craft. As for quintessentially Black Keys songs, you’ve got “10 A.M. Automatic,” “Girl Is On My Mind,” and “All Hands Against His Own,” which are, well, the quintessential Black Keys songs. Sometimes it’s easy to group the whole of the band’s first four albums together into one particular collection of music separate from the latter half, when the albums began to actually sound different from one another. The main problem there is that Rubber Factory stands starkly apart from it all, remaining one of their best releases.