On their new album No Rain, No Flowers, The Black Keys — Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney — draw heavily on their love of the psychedelicized soul of the early 1970s, especially Philadelphia soul, and the result is an enchanting record that is their grooviest and most pop-sounding to date.
The Keys team with some outside hitmakers on the record’s 11 tracks, including Rick Nowels, Daniel Tashian, Desmond Child and Scott Storch, all of whom also perform on the album. In many ways, No Rain, No Flowers is a continuation of the musical themes the duo explored on their 2024 release Ohio Players, but without the hip-hop influence.
The record opens with the title track, then winds through five more soul-inflected numbers that set the album’s tone, including the singles “Babygirl” and “The Night Before,” which became the Keys’ ninth No. 1 on the Billboard Adult Alternative Airplay chart.
After the first six tracks, the duo detours into “Man on a Mission,” the first of three numbers that fall outside the record’s ’70s soul vibe. Musically, it's a harder-hitting rock track, but it still features some of the album’s key sonic elements — such as dense, soulful backing vocals — that make it fit seamlessly with the other material. The same is true for “A Little Too High” and “Neon Moon,” the two tracks that close the album. They land somewhere between Buffalo Springfield and classic Southern rock, but still work with the rest of the record because of their inherent soulfulness.
The Keys don’t have any local dates on the books right now, but they are playing Shaky Knees in Atlanta in September. Find No Rain, No Flowers at your favorite record store or on your favorite streaming service via this handy link, and follow the band on Instagram for more.
