The Black Keys – Let’s Rock

The Black Keys – LET’S ROCK is the Akron duo’s ninth studio album, arriving in 2019 on Easy Eye Sound/Nonesuch Records after a five-year gap between releases. That gap matters. It means this record carries real weight as a comeback statement, and from the first listen it’s clear Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney came back with a specific intention: strip everything down and remind you what they sound like when it’s just the two of them doing what they’ve done since they were teenagers.

What The Black Keys – LET’S ROCK Is Actually About

Auerbach and Carney wrote, tracked, and produced the album themselves at Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville, recording live to capture the directness that defined their early work. Carney described the approach plainly: “The record is like a homage to electric guitar. We took a simple approach and trimmed all the fat like we used to.” That’s not marketing language, that’s a production philosophy you can hear. Backing vocals from Leisa Hans and Ashley Wilcoxson add texture without crowding the core sound, which stays rooted in guitar and drums the way a Black Keys record probably should.

The Pressing and Format Details

This is a standard LP release on Nonesuch Records, catalog number 591592. Nonesuch has a solid reputation for quality pressings and reliable manufacturing, and this release fits that standard. The LP format suits the record well. “Let’s Rock” is a direct, relatively lean album, the kind that benefits from the warmth and physicality of vinyl rather than the convenience of a stream. Side separations give the music room to breathe in a way a playlist never quite does.

Why This One Belongs in a Collection

If you followed The Black Keys through their run from “Thickfreakness” to “El Camino” and then watched them go quiet for half a decade, this record represents a genuine moment of recommitment. Auerbach put it directly: “When we’re together we are The Black Keys, that’s where that real magic is, and always has been since we were sixteen.” Coming from someone who spent those five years building a production career and releasing solo work, that’s a meaningful thing to say. This LP is the physical document of two people deciding to return to the thing they built together, recorded live, produced by themselves, on their own terms. For collectors who care about the arc of a band’s catalog, this is the record that closes the gap and reopens the conversation. It belongs next to everything else they’ve done.