On Monday afternoon, the new Jack White album could already be streamed on iTunes Radio, way ahead of its official release (June 10th through White’s own Third Man Records)… so yeah, why not listen to it right now? It’s a relatively short one, an eleven-track album and we had already the pleasure to listen to a lot of the songs: ‘Lazaretto’, ‘Temporary Ground’, ‘High Ball Stepper’, ‘Just One Drink’, so what’s left? No much surprise? Actually the album may grow on you at each repeat, as it is the case for me right now. This is just a first impression as I listen to the tracks, the album is obviously gonna receive tons of reviews because the ex-White Stripes frontman, despite being this weirdo hermit with the bad reputation to trash every other musicians on the planet, despite being the Willy Wonka of the vinyl world, this Zorro on donuts turned guitar hero – thanks Noel Gallagher for this one – will always be the darling of the critics for a very good reason. This album is very good, dense and stuffy, hard to digest the first time because unfocused and multi-directional, and I guess that I (and you) will come back to it as many times as necessary in the future.
‘Three Women’ is a stomping bluesy composition, almost review style, with a lot of ‘lawdy lawd’ and may be only the very white Jack White can get away with that? ‘Lazaretto’ is still effective, angry and furious with some tempo shifting, a bit funky, and very wild ,…..There are a lot of things going on in this song, it takes many directions, and you can almost see White slamming Auerbach on that one! We may have heard all this before but it’s still good and has an immense potential live, and now I am regretting to have passed on these tickets.
Funny how I hear a bit of Beck’s Mutations in ‘Temporary Ground’, a charming country-esque duo (there’s a female voice) with a twang, some bucolic mountain violins and a bit more complexity than it appears first. But the variety of sounds on the album is very impressive, ‘Would You Fight For My Love?’ starts slowly but finally throws another tantrum (the album is full of them), empowering White’s strong persona who shines through the entire ‘Lazaretto’. ‘High Ball Stepper’ is a mad chemistry of abrasive-explosive blues freaking out, coming back stronger each time, and still a favorite of mine,… a highlight of the album despite the absence of lyrics. I still don’t care too much for ‘Just One Drink’, which juxtaposed to ‘High Ball’ sounds like a Saturday night in a Nashville honky-tonk bar. Nothing wrong with that, but a bit too ordinary? Then there is the curiously upbeat and gently bouncy intro of ‘Alone in My Home’ which sound like the Eels meeting later some old Rolling Stones classic, it’s almost too playful to believe it. Naturally, or at this point I am not sure what is natural, you have ‘Entitlement’, the sad ballad of the tired-cowboy, with a lap steel guitar, keys and harp and a heartfelt chorus warming up everybody’s soul into some future sing-along at the at the end of the movie,… wow this album is quite country isn’t it? May be Jack White wanted to turn all Hank Williams on this one.
‘That Black Bat Licorice’ has this borderline annoying recurrent guitar line, too much Black Keys may be? (ha! But we can say this now that they have make peace with each other) while Jack White gets all-nervous with some gypsy violins toward the end, why not? But he unleashes his true Zorro-potential during ‘I Think I Found The Culprit’. The harmonies of this one remind me about some tamed-down Black Lips, it’s spaghetti western-esque, adventurous, meander-esque, with some stop-start effects and then the relatively short album ends with the pretty, hopeful and catchy ‘Want And Able’.
By the way, a lazaretto (and I didn’t know this) is a quarantine station for maritime travelers or a leper colony (named after the parable of Lazarus the beggar). Does Jack White feel in quarantine in the music world, does he think he is the leper of these times? Could this album be the angry expression of an anti-digital man who still doesn’t own a cell phone in 2014? ‘They put me down in a lazaretto/Born rotten, bored rotten’… ‘Quarantined on the Isle Of Man’, he sings on the titled track. But seeing that the pair of tickets for his upcoming show at the Henry Fonda now reaches $700-800 on reseller sites, there is presently no quarantine.
Tracklist
1. “Three Women”
2. “Lazaretto”
3. “Temporary Ground”
4. “Would You Fight For My Love?”
5. “High Ball Stepper”
6. “Just One Drink”
7. “Alone In My Home”
8. “Entitlement”
9. “That Black Bat Licorice”
10. “I Think I Found The Culprit”
11. “Want And Able”
