(Artist Update)

Written by: Jake Beach   

In 2024, The Black Keys faced challenges, including the underperformance of their album 'Ohio Players,' cancelled arena shows attributed to low ticket sales, and changes in management. The album title, 'No Rain, No Flowers suggests that  these events were very much on their mind when they began recording their latest album. Musically, the duo moves away from their signature raw blues-rock sound, opting instead for a blues-inflected pop style characterized by polished and accessible arrangements. The album features collaborations with producers and songwriters Daniel Tashian (Kacey Musgraves’ 'Golden Hour'), Rick Nowels (Stevie Nicks, Lana Del Rey), and Scott Storch, underscoring a shift toward a more pop-oriented sound.

No Rain, No Flowers has had a strange, almost bittersweet run—it completely missed the Billboard 200, a stark contrast to their glory days with albums like El Camino, yet it still found life on the Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart at 11 and even hit 1 in Croatia, 25 in Japan, and charted in Portugal. First-week U.S. sales hovered around 15,000—hardly blockbuster numbers—but the real spark came with “The Night Before,” which climbed to No. 1 on Adult Alternative Airplay and proved the band can still land a radio hit.

The record feels less like a commercial juggernaut and more like a statement of survival: born out of a rough 2024 with canceled shows and management shake-ups, it leans into a smooth, nostalgic sound that critics have alternately praised as reflective and warm or dismissed as too comfortable and uninspired. To me, it reads as a transitional album—one where the band stepped back from chasing arena-filling riffs to embrace something smaller, poppier, and strangely more vulnerable, even if it doesn’t shake the earth the way their best work once did.

The No Rain, No Flowers Tour launched on May 23, 2025, in Durant, Oklahoma, kicking off the spring leg of the tour. Over the next several weeks, the band brought their brand of soulful blues-rock to iconic venues across North America—including Red Rocks Amphitheatre, The Greek Theatre in Berkeley and Los Angeles, and Stone Pony in Asbury Park—before wrapping up this leg on June 14 in New Jersey.

Not content to stop there, the band launched a second U.S. leg beginning August 9 in New Jersey, extending through September. These shows span across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, with appearances at venues like Pine Knob Music Theatre—where Gary Clark Jr. joined as special guest on August 21

On the international front, the Black Keys embarked on a European tour, stopping in cities like Odense (Denmark), Berlin (Germany), London (U.K.), and Rome (Italy), culminating at Spain’s Festival Internacional de Benicàssim—where they’re slated as a headliner.

This isn’t just a comeback—it’s a proper revival. Kicking off the No Rain, No Flowers Tour in late May, The Black Keys blasted through iconic stages across America with support from Hermanos Gutiérrez and The Heavy Heavy, hitting high points like Red Rocks and The Greek Theatre before wrapping up the spring run in New Jersey. By late summer, they were back on the road, spreading the love from New Jersey to Mexico and Canada—and even adding a headline night with Gary Clark Jr. at Pine Knob. Then they jetted off across Europe, lighting up festival stages from Berlin to Benicàssim. After a canceled 2024 tour, this feels like their firecracker moment—raw, relentless, and absolutely unapologetic.

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