"The people around me won't let me become what I mean to, they just want me the same," moans Jack White towards the end of Blunderbuss (out April 24 via Third Man Records), "I look at myself and I want to just cover my eyes and give myself a new name." White, of course, has given himself a new name—his own. Ostensibly (though certainly not practically or aesthetically) freed from the creative expectations and back catalogue baggage of The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather, White's solo debut can't help but feel like an obvious extension instead of a fresh start… not that, y'know, he ever needed to make one in the first place.
Like the last two White Stripes records, Blunderbuss bounces from sound to sound (the feral garage punk of "Sixteen Saltines", the pastoral Appalachian folk of "Blunderbuss", the quirky ragtime piano groove of "Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy") with an almost whimsical effortlessness. Everything White touches, from his lyrics to his artfully messy electric guitar tones, feels aggressively uncalculated to the point of near-parody. For instance, the piano recital theatrics of "Weep Themselves To Sleep" make an extraordinary counterpoint to White's grungy guitar riffing, but one gets the distinct impression that he threw the arrangement together without a second (or even first) thought.
The electrifying sensation that anything could happen from one track to the next ("Love Interruption" still can't help but astound with its completely left-field pre-impressionist vibes) begins to wear off a bit on the album's second half, starting with the tail feather-friendly blues rock rave-up "I'm Shakin" and peaking with the speedy dual pianos of "I Guess I Should Go To Sleep". Things get interesting again on the sprawling "On And On And On"—building up from a weepy, late evening pedal steel intro, the song spreads out into an almost psychedelic slow march of pianos, Leslie cabinet guitars, and morosely introspective vocals. Closing number "Take Me With You When You Go", meanwhile, begins as a propulsive, jazzy piano shuffle, segues into a strange jazz-folk hybrid before segueing into a buzzy, overdriven electric guitar funk throw-down.
Like the best of his work, Jack White's Blunderbuss is a confrontationally immediate collection of songs written and recorded, for better or worse, entirely in the moment without much polish or fuss. As always, White leaves the over-analyzing up to us, the listeners-- whether or not you're willing to pore over each line and measure, the bottom line remains stagnant: Blunderbuss is simply another damned good album from one of the last few artists able and willing to keep making them.
SumOlogy: Turns out a Jack White solo album sounds more or else exactly how you imagined it would.
Grade: A
Follow Brett Warner on Twitter: @Erasurehead
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