The Black Keys Return With “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire” — And “Peaches!” Is Almost Here

The Black Keys don’t do things quietly, and their return to the spotlight is no exception. The Akron duo — Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney — have dropped “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire,” the second single from their upcoming album Peaches!, due May 1 via Easy Eye Sound and Parlophone Records. If you needed a reminder of what makes this band tick, consider this track that reminder.

The song arrives with a music video that feels deliberately unpolished in the best possible way: shot during a surprise, intimate show in New York, it captures the band in live mode, no safety net. Raw energy, small room, no distance between the musicians and the people watching them. It’s the kind of footage that makes you wish you’d known about the show in advance. This follows the previously released “You Got To Lose,” and together the two singles are doing serious work in building anticipation for what Peaches! promises to be.

What is Peaches!, exactly? By the band’s own account, it’s the most spontaneous record they’ve made in years — possibly ever. The creative process drew heavily from both Auerbach and Carney’s shared obsession with record collecting and the classic sounds that shaped their ears long before anyone outside Ohio knew who they were. Blues, soul, the kind of rock and roll that never needed a press release to justify itself. The album sounds like two guys going back to the source and finding out the water is still cold and clear.

There’s also a more personal thread running through Peaches!. For Auerbach, the record emerged during a significant stretch — the kind of period where the studio becomes less of a workplace and more of a lifeline. Carney played a decisive role in that, pushing his bandmate back into the room, back to the work. It’s a dynamic that has defined the Black Keys since the beginning: two people who argue, create, and ultimately trust each other more than anyone else in the room.

The Black Keys have spent the better part of two decades being one of the most reliably excellent guitar-rock bands working. They’ve collected GRAMMY Awards, filled arenas, and survived the kind of hiatuses that quietly end other bands’ careers. Peaches! isn’t a comeback — they were never really gone. It’s more like a recalibration, a record that leans into where they came from precisely because they’ve earned the confidence to go back there without it feeling like nostalgia. Watch the video, mark May 1 on your calendar.