After the end of the White Stripes, fans were understandably curious what frontman Jack White would do next. During the last few years of the Stripes, they had settled into an inactivity that allowed Jack to explore several side projects like The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather, but those were full band efforts that didn't allow for Jack's own vision to fully manifest. But now with the release of Blunderbuss, Jack has finally shown us what he can do when he's truly on his own, and the results are fascinating.
Jack White has never been shy about displaying his influences from the annals of rock and roll, but on Blunderbuss, he's all over the map. Country, blues, rock, soul, and anything else that catches his fancy all make an appearance here. The sounds are lush and true, and the production is unsurprisingly excellent, warm and analog without being muddy. Perhaps most impressive is the track "Weep Themselves to Sleep" where insistent piano shares space with dirty guitars and pounding drums, with a sputtering guitar solo sweeping across the stereo channels. The songs show serious craft in their construction, with nothing sounding tossed off or rushed, proving that Jack has either been hard at work these last few years or he just makes it look easy.
The White Stripes always seemed to have a childlike sense of play, due to Jack's lyrics (see the song "We're Going To Be Friends") and loose guitar style and Meg White's fun, splashy drum work. But on Blunderbuss we get a glimpse of Jack's more adult perspective, and it's clear he's got some lady troubles. Many of the songs seem to involve tales of alluring but sadistic women, which all gets mixed up into a Freudian brew of sex and death. But while Jack is wrestling with Eros and Thanatos, he doesn't forget to rock, which means that his first outing under his own name is quite a success.
-Review by TZARATHUSTRA
