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album review
Anybody who has followed Jack White's online screeds and offstage brawls knows that the White Stripes' mastermind can tend to get a little, well, defensive when he's challenged (and sometimes even when he's not), but this trait hasn't always surfaced on record -- at least not in the way he and his merry band of Raconteurs do on their second album, Consolers of the Lonely. At the very least, this bubbling blend of bizarro blues, rustic progressive rock, fractured pop, and bludgeoning guitars is a finger in the eye to anyone who dared call the band a mere power pop trifle, proof that the Raconteurs are a rock & roll band, but it's not just the sound of the record that's defiant. There's the very nature of the album's release: how it was announced to the world a week before its release when it then appeared in all formats in all retail outfits simultaneously; there's the obstinately olde-fashioned look of the art work, how the group is decked out like minstrels at a turn-of-the century carnival, or at least out of Dylan's Masked and Anonymous. Most of all, there's the overriding sense that the Raconteurs are turning into an outlet for every passing fancy that Jack has but will not allow himself to indulge within the confines of the tightly controlled White Stripes, whether it's melodramatic Western operas like "The Switch and the Spur" (whose concluding bridge states "any poor souls who trespass against us...will be suffer the bite or be stung dead on sight", functioning as a virtual manifesto for the band), or the slick studio trickery that makes this the biggest White-related production yet. And it's hard to shake the feeling that this is the show of Jack White III (as he now insists on billing himself, playing right into his ongoing Third Man fetish), as that despite the even split in songwriting and producing credits between Jack and Brendan Benson, and even how they trade off lead vocals, that only White could have pushed the Raconteurs to get as stubbornly, stiffly weird as they do here. Of course, that impression is not tempered by how Brendan mimics Jack's manic blues babble, particularly on the spitfire "Salute Your Solution" -- White does follow Benson's gentle, rounded phrasing on the elongated melodies, but that's a subtle distinction overpowered by the force of Jack's concepts. And this is indeed "concepts" in plural: how cult hero Terry Reid is used as a touchstone for the band's progressive blues-rock via a blazing cover of "Rich Kid Blues," or how there's an evocation of the old weird America in all the album's rambling centerpieces, or how half of the record fights against pop brevity, while all of it is a deathblow against the idea that the Raconteurs are power pop sissies. Sometimes, the group hits against that notion with a bluesy bluster, especially on the opening pair of tunes which tread a bit too closely toward Jack conventions, sometimes their attempts to stretch out are either ill-defined ("Attention," "You Don't Understand Me") or collapse under their own weight ("Many Shades of Black"), but the moments that do work -- and there are many -- make for the best music the Raconteurs have yet made. The album truly kicks into gear with the tipsy country stomp of "Old Enough" and after that, there's a series of remarkable moments: that absurd Morricone dust-up "The Switch and the Spur"; "Hold Up," which rages like '70s Stones at their sleaziest; the rampaging "Five on the Five"; that splendid Reid cover that finds its heir on the steadily building "These Stones Will Shout," and finally, the closing backwoods ballad on "Carolina Drama." These songs illustrate all the ways that Jack White's stubborn stylization pays off -- they're quite deliberate in their conflation of the traditional and modern, yet they never sound over-thought, they kick and crackle as pure kinetic music. Broken Boy Soldiers lacked tunes like these, tunes with considerable weight, and these songs turn Consolers of the Lonely into a lop-sided, bottom-loaded album that's better and richer than their debut. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
more albums by this artist
See all-
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- Broken Boy Soldiers
- Released 2006
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- Salute Your Solution (2-Track Single)
- Released 2008
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- Steady, As She Goes/Store Bought Bones
- Released 2006
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listener reviews
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Crazy guys...
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- By mikeymusicman1
- 12/9/2008 13:46:06
- The build up to Jack White’s side project “The Raconteurs” was expected to
be great, as it planned to build on the success of “Broken Boy Soldiers, but
the thing is… it had absolutely no media build up. They have managed to
maintain their sound of woozy saloon music and Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan
remain key influences of front man Jack White.
The lead single “Saltate Your Solution” is a bouncy, energetic ramshackle of a
tune that sounds remarkably like the best song The Hives never recorded. It’s
an early highlight of the album and once the fast/slow tempo becomes used to,
it’s easy to see that “Saltate Your Solution” is in fact a better song than
“Steady As She Goes.”
White seems to have become more open to worldly influences and the All-
American style and feel of “Broken Boy Soldiers.”
You really feel that “Consolers Of The Lonely” recaptures their live
performances on stage.
The Knights of Cydonia like intro to “Many Shades of Black” sounds remarkably
like a song that should be closing a West End
theatre performance. It’s smart savvy, and is a real highlight of the album.
However, it’s difficult to stay involved in all the songs as the slower paced
songs do sound awfully similar, which makes the record less accessible than
their debut. The entire album sounds spontaneous; as if the musicians just
turned up and started playing in a venue. Recorded in Nashville, Tennessee
you can really sense and feel the tumbleweed, desert and the lizard’s
punctuating the dry landscape as the old saloon doors creak open for the dusty
equipment.
The drums are mostly double tracked to full effect especially in “Consolers of
the Lonely” and power chords take centre stage in a off beat and thrilling
first track.
White reinstates himself as one of the best storytellers in “Caroline
Drama” a magnificent number that threatens to buckle under it’s own musical
weight until the sing-along destroys the tension “singing la la la la la - la
la la yeah”
***1/2 - Be the first person to rate this review!
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The fact that...
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- By cs188
- 6/18/2008 02:22:55
- in three months' time this album has 20,000 more plays than their first album - released two years ago - is really saying something about its quality.
- 1 out of 1 people
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Theese guys...
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- By InsTimebomb79
- 6/1/2008 05:29:19
- must have some major balls to release the fact they've been recording an album a week before release, perhaps the best(Or Worst) buisness desicion ever. think about it. who had time to review it? Noone! <br/>but 5/5 great album, salute your salution is a great song, heres hoping for another album were they are tight lipped untill the very end!
- 2 out of 2 people
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