{"id":125845,"date":"2025-08-07T08:19:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T08:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/125845\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T08:19:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T08:19:10","slug":"the-black-keys-no-rain-no-flowers-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/125845\/","title":{"rendered":"The Black Keys: No Rain, No Flowers Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listening to the cool, glassy No Rain, No Flowers, you\u2019d never suspect that the Black Keys<\/a> are on a mission to rebound from their annus horribilis, the kind of year that gives rock bands nightmares.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t supposed to be that way. The Black Keys set up their 2024 to be triumphant, releasing the glitzed-out Ohio Players<\/a> with plans to tour North American arenas through the summer. They launched the album by saturating SXSW 2024: giving a keynote, holding multiple showcases, and premiering Jeff Dupre\u2019s documentary, This Is a Film About the Black Keys. But then, nothing went right. Ohio Players made a lackluster debut on the Billboard 200\u2014landing at No. 26, it was their weakest showing for a full-length since their 2006 album peaked at No. 95. The band cancelled its arena shows within a month of their announcement, reportedly due to soft ticket sales. And within weeks, they had also fired a management team spearheaded by industry legend (and Eagles<\/a> manager) Irving Azoff. Drummer Patrick Carney vented on the site formerly known as Twitter: \u201cWe got fucked. I\u2019ll let you all know how so it doesn\u2019t happen to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carney never delved into the details, later telling Rolling Stone<\/a>, \u201cYou got to take it on the chin sometimes to move forward, and that\u2019s kind of what the last year was for us.\u201d In that same interview, guitarist Dan Auerbach<\/a> explained that the title No Rain, No Flowers derived from \u201can expression that I\u2019d heard \u2026 that seemed to sum up how we envisioned ourselves getting over the situation that we\u2019d just been through.\u201d Carney hammered that point home: \u201cWe got a little bit complacent with the business shit because we\u2019ve been so busy with the creative shit,\u201d he said; it was a reminder \u201cto pay attention to both things.\u201d<\/p>\n

From a certain angle, No Rain, No Flowers does find the Black Keys shaking off complacency and venturing into new territory, leaving their gnarled blues-punk back in the garage. A key component in that expansion is the band\u2019s decision to invite a host of outside musicians into the studio. They did this on Ohio Players, too, working with like-minded crate diggers including Beck<\/a>, Dan the Automator<\/a>, and Noel Gallagher<\/a>. But the pedigree of the collaborators here is decidedly pop: Daniel Tashian, best known for his work on Kacey Musgraves<\/a>\u2019 Grammy-winning Golden Hour<\/a>; veteran songwriter Rick Nowels, who has written with with everyone from Stevie Nicks<\/a> to Lana Del Rey;<\/a> and Scott Storch, a hip-hop producer whose commercial heyday is nearly 20 years gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listening to the cool, glassy No Rain, No Flowers, you\u2019d never suspect that the Black Keys are on…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":125846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[1939,171,975,67,132,68,1940],"class_list":{"0":"post-125845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-albums","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us","14":"tag-web"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114986507496947283","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}