Most of the rock bands that paid tribute to the late northern Mississippi juke-joint hero Junior Kimbrough on last year’s hit-or-miss “Sunday Nights” took the easy approach–loud, fast, raw, explosive. The Black Keys, a young blues-loving duo from Akron, Ohio, try tunneling to Kimbrough’s soul on this six-song EP. Unsurprisingly, they don’t quite make it: “Work Me” is just a repetitive jam off a thin guitar riff, without much presence, and while “Nobody But You” captures Kimbrough’s tossed-off style, the unfocused Keys prove there was more to the unheralded singer-guitarist than simple sloppiness. The best track is “My Mind Is Ramblin’,” also from “Sunday Nights”–somewhat incongruously, it seems well-rehearsed, unlike the rest of “Chulahoma.”
