The Black Keys 'Peaches!' is the Akron duo’s fourteenth studio album (their sixth since 2019), a visceral and raw 10-song collection described by singer Dan Auerbach as the band’s “most natural record” since their 2002 debut, 'The Big Come Up'. In similar DIY spirit, the album was recorded with all musicians playing in the same room with few overdubs, and is the first record mixed entirely by the band themselves since 2006’s 'Magic Potion'. The songs chosen reflect Auerbach and bandmate Patrick Carney’s obsessive record-collecting habit, which in recent years has escalated into an ongoing series of Record Hang DJ-set dance parties where they spin vintage 45s for packed, high-energy dancefloors in the coolest spots across the globe.

The cover art for 'Peaches!' is based around an iconic image from Memphis-born photographer, William Eggleston, and marks the return of Patrick’s brother, Michael Carney, overseeing the art direction.

TRACK LISTING

1. Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire
2. Stop Arguing Over Me
3. Who’s Been Foolin' You
4. It’s A Dream
5. Tomorrow Night
6. You Got To Lose
7. Tell Me You Love Me
8. She Does It Right
9. Fireman Ring The Bell
10. Nobody But You Baby 

Grammy-winning rock duo The Black Keys are back with their 13th studio album, 'No Rain, No Flowers'. 'No Rain, No Flowers' delivers an eclectic sound shaped by the energy and spirit of the band’s wildly popular Record Hangs— dance parties where Auerbach and Carney take turns spinning rare, but truly potent cuts from their impressive collection of vinyl 45s for baying crowds of longtime fans and new converts alike. More than two decades into their career, The Black Keys consistently continue to create music on their own terms, fueled by instinct, passion, and a refusal to settle. 'No Rain, No Flowers' is a testament to the band’s deep commitment to their craft and their enduring creativity.
The band’s Dan Auerbach said: ““This whole album was really labored over with a lot of love. We hope you feel that.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Who doesn't love a bit of Black Keys eh? Spirited bluesy throb and snappy garage rock, this time with a rich seam of poppy euphoria and stadium rock grandiosity. Huge news.

TRACK LISTING

1. No Rain, No Flowers
2. The Night Before
3. Babygirl
4. Down To Nothing
5. On Repeat
6. Make You Mine
7. Man On A Mission
8. Kiss It
9. All My Life
10. A Little Too High
11. Neon Moon

Written by The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney with longtime friends Dan “The Automator” Nakamura and Beck, the celebratory, joyful ‘Beautiful People (Stay High)’ is one of several songs on the album that feature collaborations between the band and various additional friends and colleagues, including Noel Gallagher, Greg Kurstin, and others. Speaking on the collaborative nature of the album, Carney shares, “We had this epiphany: ‘We can call our friends to help us make music.’ It’s funny because we both write songs with other people – Dan all the time [as a solo artist and producer], me when I'm producing a record. That’s what we do.”

Auerbach adds, “No matter who we work with, it never feels like we're sacrificing who we are. It only feels like it adds some special flavor. We just expanded that palette with people we wanted to work with. We were there to support them and their ideas, to do whatever we could to see that moment flourish. But when it came time to finish the album, it was just Pat and me. We'd never worked harder to make a record,” he continues. “It's never taken us this long to make an album. We took our time and did it right.”

“What we wanted to accomplish with this record was make something that was fun,” Carney says. “And something that most bands 20 years into their career don’t make, which is an approachable, fun record that is also cool.”

While making Ohio Players, a title inspired by the legendary Dayton, OH funk band of the same name, The Black Keys were also DJing dance parties in cities around the world that they called “record hangs”, spinning 45s from their own eclectic and growing collections. Mojo reports, ‘The spirit of those parties infused the album’s DNA. ‘That’s been the fun of it,’ [says] Auerbach. ‘Letting go a little bit.’”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A lovely new one from Blues-rock troubadours The Black Keys including collaborations with some of the biggest names in music today. There are a selection of classic 'Keys outings alongside some more outsider pieces, all perfectly produced with the help of Beck and Noel Gallagher. It's a beautifully produced, perfectly paced new direction for the band.

After 10 albums, the last five of which have gone top 10 or better, six Grammy awards, and sold-out tours around the world, The Black Keys are back: the duo, called ‘America’s Most Trusted Band’ by Stephen Colbert, and ‘One of the best rock’n’roll bands on the planet’ by Uncut, releases its eleventh studio album, Dropout Boogie, via Nonesuch Records. Dropout Boogie features collaborations with Billy F. Gibbons (ZZ Top), Greg Cartwright (Reigning Sound), and Angelo Petraglia (Kings of Leon).

Dropout Boogie is released one day before the twentieth anniversary of The Black Keys’ first album, The Big Come Up. As they have done their entire career, the duo of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney wrote all of the material in the studio, and the new album captures a number of first takes that hark back to the stripped-down blues rock of their early days making music together in Akron, Ohio basements.

“That’s always been the beauty of the thing Pat and I do. It’s instant,” Auerbach says. “We’ve never really had to work at it. Whenever we’d get together, we’d just make music, you know? We didn’t know what we were going to do, but we’d just do it and it would sound cool. It’s the natural chemistry Pat and I have. Being in a band this long is a testament to that. It was a real gift that we were given. I mean, the odds of being plopped down a block-and-a-half from each other in Akron, Ohio – it just seems crazy.”

After hashing out initial ideas as a duo at Auerbach’s Nashville-based Easy Eye Sound studio, Auerbach and Carney welcomed new collaborators Billy F. Gibbons, Greg Cartwright, and Angelo Petraglia to the Dropout Boogie sessions. Although The Black Keys previously co-wrote songs with frequent producer/collaborator Danger Mouse, this is the first time they have invited multiple new contributors to work simultaneously on one of their own albums. Both Cartwright and Petraglia can be heard on the new album’s first single, ‘Wild Child’.

“Living in Nashville and making records here has opened both of our minds to that experience a little bit more,” said Auerbach. “I knew Pat would love working with both of these guys, so we decided we’d give it a shot. It was the first time we’d ever really done that. It was fun as hell. We just sat around a table with acoustic guitars and worked out a song ahead of time.” “The cool thing with Greg is that he wants to approach stuff with a story in mind – there’s a plot, almost,” added Carney.

The Black Keys had previously jammed with ZZ Top guitar legend Billy F. Gibbons more than a decade ago in Los Angeles, while ZZ Top was working on an album with producer Rick Rubin. “We never even really wrote one song – we just had some ideas we put down,” Carney said. “We really just wanted to hang out with him. We stayed in touch, and Dan invited him to the studio once we started working on this album.”

Between the duo’s albums, Auerbach, through his Easy Eye Sound studio and label, has produced and co-written with artists including Yola, Marcus King, Robert Finley, Ceramic Animal, and the Velveteers.

Carney has also been busy as a producer at his Nashville-by-way-of-Akron studio Audio Eagle, where he has worked with Michelle Branch, Tennis, Jessy Wilson, Calvin Johnson, and The Sheepdogs, among others.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The inimitable Black Keys return for their sleekest and most groove-filled outing yet. Funky af, swimming with the spirit of southern rock and hazy rock and/or roll.

El Camino was produced by Danger Mouse and The Black Keys and was recorded in the band’s then-new hometown of Nashville during the spring of 2011. The Black Keys won three awards at the 55th annual GRAMMY Awards for El Camino – Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song, and Best Rock Album – among other worldwide accolades. In the UK, the band was nominated for a BRIT Award (Best International Group) and an NME Award (Best International Band). The week of release, the band performed on Saturday Night Live, The Colbert Report, and the Late Show with David Letterman, and later that year, went on to perform their first Madison Square Garden show.

Rolling Stone, which featured the band on their cover around the release, hailed El Camino for bringing ‘raw, riffed-out power back to pop’s lexicon,’ and called it ‘the Keys’ grandest pop gesture yet, augmenting dark-hearted fuzz blasts with sleekly sexy choruses and Seventies-glam flair.’ The Guardian said, ‘They sound like a band who think they've made the year's best rock'n'roll album, probably because that's exactly what they've done.’

In the newly written liner notes for El Camino (10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition), David Fricke says:
The story of the Black Keys' seventh album, named after an automobile, long out of fashion and featured nowhere in the artwork, begins on a sidewalk in the middle of a blizzard. On the afternoon of January 9, 2011, singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney stood on the pavement outside the Bowery Hotel in New York City, saw the weather turning vicious, looked at each other and came to the same decision: They had to get off the road.

The night before, the duo scored another first in a season getting crowded with them: The Black Keys' debut appearance on Saturday Night Live, performing ‘Howlin' for You’ and ‘Tighten Up’, the breakout singles from their latest release, Brothers. Two days earlier, Brothers – the Keys' first Top 5 album, released in May 2010 – became their first Gold record, passing a half-million in sales thanks to heavy FM rotation and a near-year of gigging, now set to run deep into 2011 including a prestige slot at Coachella and victory laps in Europe and Australia.

The Keys "tried to settle down" after cancelling the tour, Carney says. But that didn't last. "I said, 'We should just make another record.' And I asked Dan if we should get Danger Mouse" – the hip-hop and modern-rock producer, real name Brian Burton, who worked on the Keys' 2008 record, Attack & Release, and co-produced ‘Tighten Up’. Auerbach and Carney did not have any new songs, but as the drummer notes, "Most of our records – we don't have material when we start. Brothers was made up in the studio."

In the UK, the record gave the band their first top 10 hit, and in the US it debuted at #2 on the Billboard Top 200. The band was also the #1 most played artist at Alternative and AAA radio formats for 2012 in the US. The album’s first single, ‘Lonely Boy’: reached #1 on the Alternative and AAA charts; it also entered the top 10 at Rock radio. The second single, ‘Gold on the Ceiling’, also reached #1 on Alternative radio and the third single, ‘Little Black Submarines’, reached the top 3 at Alternative radio.

El Camino has been certified Double Platinum in the US; Platinum in the UK, Belgium, France, Ireland, and the Netherlands; Triple Platinum in Australia and New Zealand; Quadruple Platinum in Canada; and Gold in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Spain, and Switzerland. Of the album’s singles, ‘Lonely Boy’ was certified Double Platinum in the US, nine-times Platinum in Canada, Triple Platinum in Australia, Platinum in New Zealand, and Gold in Denmark and the UK. ‘Gold on the Ceiling’ was certified Platinum in the United States, Australia, and Canada. ‘Little Black Submarines’ was certified Platinum in the United States. The Black Keys also were nominated for an MTV European Music Award in 2012.

TRACK LISTING

DISC 1: EL CAMINO (2021 REMASTER)
Side A
1. Lonely Boy
2. Dead And Gone
3. Gold On The Ceiling
4. Little Black Submarines
5. Money Maker
Side B
1. Run Right Back
2. Sister
3. Hell Of A Season
4. Stop Stop
5. Nova Baby
6. Mind Eraser

DISC 2: LIVE IN PORTLAND, ME.
(PART 1)
Side C
1. Howlin’ For You
2. Next Girl
3. Run Right Back
4. Same Old Thing
5. Dead And Gone
Side D
1. Gold On The Ceiling
2. Thickfreakness
3. Girl Is On My Mind
4. I'll Be Your Man / Your Touch
5. Little Black Submarines

DISC 3: LIVE IN PORTLAND, ME.
(PART 2)
Side E
1. Money Maker
2. Strange Times
3. Chop And Change
4. Nova Baby
5. Ten Cent Pistol
Side F
1. Tighten Up
2. Lonely Boy
3. Everlasting Light
4. She’s Long Gone
5. I Got Mine

DISC 4: BBC SESSION
Side A
1. Howlin’ For You *
2. Next Girl *
3. Gold On The Ceiling *
4. Thickfreakness *
5. I’ll Be Your Man *
6. Your Touch *
Side B
1. Little Black Submarines *
2. Dead And Gone *
3. Tighten Up *
4. Lonely Boy *
5. I Got Mine *

DISC 5: ELECTRO-VOX SESSION
Side A
1. Dead And Gone *
2. Gold On The Ceiling *
3. Howlin’ For You *
4. Lonely Boy *
Side B
1. Money Maker *
2. Next Girl *
3. Run Right Back *
4. Sister *
5. Tighten Up *

* Super Deluxe Editions Only.

The Black Keys release their tenth studio album, Delta Kream, via Nonesuch Records. The record celebrates the band’s roots, featuring eleven Mississippi hill country blues standards that they have loved since they were teenagers, before they were a band, including songs by R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, among others. Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney recorded Delta Kream at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville; they were joined by musicians Kenny Brown and Eric Deaton, long-time members of the bands of blues legends including R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. The album takes its name from William Eggleston’s iconic Mississippi photograph that is on its cover.

Auerbach says of the album, “We made this record to honor the Mississippi hill country blues tradition that influenced us starting out. These songs are still as important to us today as they were the first day Pat and I started playing together and picked up our instruments. It was a very inspiring session with Pat and me along with Kenny Brown and Eric Deaton in a circle, playing these songs. It felt so natural.”

Auerbach says of Delta Kream’s first single ‘Crawling Kingsnake’: “I first heard [John Lee] Hooker’s version in high school. My uncle Tim would have given me that record. But our version is definitely Junior Kimbrough’s take on it. It’s almost a disco riff!” Carney adds, "We fell into this drum intro; it's kind of accidental. The ultimate goal was to highlight the interplay between the guitars. My role with Eric was to create a deeper groove."

The music from northern Mississippi, which came to life in juke joints, has long left an imprint on the band’s music, from their cover of R.L. Burnide’s ‘Busted’ and Junior Kimbrough’s ‘Do The Romp’ on their debut album, The Big Come Up; to their subsequent signing to Fat Possum Records, home to many of their musical heroes; and to their EP of Junior Kimbrough covers, Chulahoma.

TRACK LISTING

1. Crawling Kingsnake
2. Louise
3. Poor Boy A Long Way From Home
4. Stay All Night
5. Going Down South
6. Coal Black Mattie
7. Do The Romp
8. Sad Days, Lonely Nights
9. Walk With Me
10. Mellow Peaches
11. Come On And Go With Me

The Black Keys’ long-awaited ninth studio album, “Let’s Rock”, their first in five years, is a return to the straightforward rock of the singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney’s early days as a band. Auerbach says, “When we’re together we are The Black Keys, that’s where that real magic is, and always has been since we were sixteen.” 

“Let’s Rock” was written, tracked live, and produced by Auerbach and Carney at Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville and features backing vocals from Leisa Hans and Ashley Wilcoxson. “The record is like a homage to electric guitar,” says Carney. “We took a simple approach and trimmed all the fat like we used to.”

Rolling Stone named ‘Lo/Hi’ a “Song You Need to Know” and said, ‘the Keys have officially returned, louder than ever’ and the New York Times calls the song ‘the kind of garage-boogie stomp that the band never left behind.’ In the words of the NME, ‘It’s the soundtrack to the type of party that doesn’t exist anymore, but one you still wish you were cool enough to get the invite to.’

Formed in Akron, Ohio in 2001, The Black Keys have released eight studio albums: their debut The Big Come Up (2002), followed by Thickfreakness (2003) and Rubber Factory (2004), along with their releases on Nonesuch Records, Magic Potion (2006), Attack & Release (2008), Brothers (2010), El Camino (2011), and, most recently, Turn Blue (2014). The band has won six Grammy Awards and headlined festivals including Coachella, Lollapalooza, and Governors Ball.

Since their last album together, both Auerbach and Carney have been creative forces behind a number of wide-ranging artists:
Dan Auerbach formed the Easy Eye Sound record label, named after his Nashville studio, in 2017, with the release of his second solo album, Waiting on a Song. Since its launch, Easy Eye Sound has become home to a wide range of artists including Yola, Shannon & The Clams, Dee White, Shannon Shaw, Sonny Smith, Robert Finley, and The Gibson Brothers; it also has released the posthumous album by Leo Bud Welch as well as previously unreleased material by Link Wray.

Patrick Carney has produced and recorded new music with artists such as Calvin Johnson, Michelle Branch, Damns of the West, Tobias Jesso, Jr., Jessy Wilson, Tennis, *repeat repeat, Wild Belle, Sad Planets, Turbo Fruits, and more. He also created the theme music for the Netflix TV show BoJack Horseman with his late uncle, Ralph Carney.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Having always epitomised the fuzzy groove-led party vibe, it's no surprise that their latest is the most danceable and head-nodding instalment yet, but here it is. Bluesy, sleazy and heavy but crisp and beautifully presented. Black Keys do it again!

TRACK LISTING

1. Shine A Little Light
2. Eagle Birds
3. Lo/Hi
4. Walk Across The Water
5. Tell Me Lies
6. Every Little Thing
7. Get Yourself Together
8. Sit Around And Miss You
9. Go
10. Breaking Down
11. Under The Gun
12. Fire Walk With Me

Raw, soulful blues-rock from this duo from Akron, Ohio. This is the awesome second album (their first in the UK) from Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney. With a stripped back guitar, drums and vocal line up this is top notch blues, set apart by Auerbach's distinctive fuzz guitar. Recommended.

TRACK LISTING

1. Thickfreakness
2. Hard Row" (lyrics By Dan And Chuck Auerbach)
3. Set You Free
4. Midnight In Her Eyes
5. Have Love Will Travel (Richard Berry)
6. Hurt Like Mine
7. Everywhere I Go (Junior Kimbrough)
8. No Trust
9. If You See Me
10. Hold Me In Your Arms
11. I Cry Alone