“Baby the damage is done / It won’t be long / Till we’re back in the sun,” The Black Keys sing on “No Rain, No Flowers,” the lead single from their newly announced album of the same name. Those lyrics aren’t just empty platitudes; they read more like a personal mantra for the down-on-their-luck band.
2024 certainly dealt the Ohio-based outfit its fair share of damage. The band became something of a (at least Twitter) joke when they canceled the entire North American arena tour due to atrocious ticket sales. (They also parted ways with their long-time managers in the aftermath.) Then came their participation in an Akron-based “America Loves Crypto” rally in the lead-up to the election. The concert was later reported to be an attempt to unseat Democratic senator and cryptocurrency critic Sherrod Brown, but the band insists that’s not why they did it. “It was very simple: We had lost all of our income for the year. We had retainers for people that we were working with. We got offered a lot of money to play a show, and we saw that the Black Pumas had done the same event and we were like, ‘Book it.’… It’s that simple, bro.” Patrick Carney said. Even if it was that simple, bro, it’s still a bad look. To top it all off, the band’s last album, Ohio Players, clocked in as their worst selling record in two decades.
Nevertheless, The Black Keys are at least trying to persist. They produced their new album with hotshot songwriters Rick Nowels and Daniel Tashian, with an additional assist from former Roots keyboardist and hip-hop producer Scott Storch. “We wanted to go straight to the source—into the room with people known for their songwriting. Daniel Tashian was one of the first people I met after moving to Nashville, and we’ve been fans of Scott Storch forever.” Dan Auerbach said in a press release, via Stereogum. “I had worked with Rick Nowels on Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence. We’d never really collaborated with a keyboard player or someone who writes on piano the way he does, but it clicked immediately… This whole album was really labored over with a lot of love. We hope you feel that.”
You can decide for yourself whether The Black Keys deserve their time back in the sun when No Rain, No Flowers releases August 8. Listen to the title track below:
