No Rain, No Flowers

After a tumultuous 2024 that saw The Black Keys cancel their tour, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney turned struggle into art on the duo’s aptly named 13th studio album—<i>No Rain, No Flowers</i>. “It totally kind of fucked our plans,” Carney tells Apple Music of the scrapped shows. “We took the time that we were going to be on tour, and we went back into Dan’s studio, and we just recorded a bunch of music.” The other kids from Akron ultimately decided to build on the creativity of their last full-length. “<i>Ohio Players</i> was a deeply collaborative album we made with other musicians—I guess rock stars. Beck and Noel Gallagher. Heroes of ours, you know? And guys who’ve helped us out throughout the years in different ways,” Carney says. “For this new album, we just went one step further and we wanted to do some more collaborations, and we looked at some people who had worked with artists that we liked.” That includes bringing on Lana Del Rey co-writer Rick Nowels (“No Rain, No Flowers”, “On Repeat” and “Kiss It”) and Kacey Musgraves-favourite Daniel Tashian (“The Night Before”, “Babygirl”, “Man on a Mission” and “All My Life”) as well as hip-hop producer Scott Storch (“Babygirl” and “Make You Mine,” the latter also with legendary songwriter Desmond Child). These fresh voices infuse Auerbach and Carney’s blend of rock with a bright passion (and more piano than usual)—but blues, disco and psychedelia still all find purchase here. There's even room for throwback cuts like “Down to Nothing” and “A Little Too High”, plus some Nashville licks on “Neon Moon”. Perhaps the title track sums up their current journey best: “Live long enough, and you will be burned/But all these little messes/Are only little lessons we've learned.” Or, when life gives you rain, you make flowers.