Artist: Raconteurs, The
Label: XL Recordings
Release: 2008
Length: 55.30
Rating: 3.5/5
The Raconteurs are America’s fiddle-slinging ambassadors of new-age rock shades, with a surprisingly sharp sense for tradition. The name, probably unfamiliar to most, will conjure up memories of the duo The White Stripes on first listen. Their former mastermind Jack White swapped the “striped uniform” in 2005 for a more compact musical form, namely the jersey of The Raconteurs! With their second album Consolers of the Lonely, the guys walk blindfolded into an exciting genre intersection that could hardly be pinned down as alternative rock. The playful, emotionally fully matured quartet surprises with a chaotic mix of a wide range of influences, from heavy rock and at times even blues, through experimental turns that sometimes seem to have neither head nor tail, all the way to light, almost pop-rock leanings. And since the guys hail from the capital of country music, their home being Nashville, Tennessee, the puzzle of the rural country aromas that keep ringing in our ears with only rare breaks as we push through the album loses its significance on top of everything.
The album is produced to a perfect ten. Every spice that seems dispensable “at first listen” is audible, and with repeated plays it steadily gains weight. The Raconteurs are true masters at the cheeky twisting of quirky musical-lyrical compositions that always stay beyond the reach of the lowest common denominator, i.e. the dry taste of the average listener. Despite the bold step into the unknown, the band’s debt to its senior musical role models remains immeasurable, and it often seems the guys happily borrow from the treasury of the musical past. The riff structure of Salute Your Solution, for instance, owes a lot to the sound of the legendary British rabble-rousers The Who, and as we stomp through the frenetic racket surrounding the track, we even get an increasingly frequent leaning on the recognizable moves of The White Stripes. The Raconsteurs then swap their roughly built battle gear in a heartbeat for the seemingly worn-out softness of silken robes, which grace the album’s sonic image with an unusual, somewhat abstract variety of moods. The effect this change of tempo and temperament has is staggering. The infectious melodiousness of You Don’t Understand Me, woven into a backdrop of melancholic piano, works like an epic, well-disguised spiritual diary that bravely withstands the pounding of the crude backbiting on the rest of the album.
The Switch and the Spur opens a new chapter, tailor-made for fans of more demanding compositions. An ear unused to radical maneuvers is exposed here to an army of mischievous hints, which the guys simply can’t do without. As if the old-timers hadn’t yet had their fill of the fruits of creative freedom, they hit us with Top Yourself, a snappy slide number that, with a pinch of sarcasm, can also be read as an amateur’s tryout of the blues. And the fun is far from over! Many Shades of Black sins with its blatantly exposed horn arrangements, which, together with a deliberately sharpened guitar, create something close to a state of emergency. Five To One obediently follows its predecessor’s example, only this time the overbearing role of the “merry society of healthy-lung lovers” is swapped for the hysterical vocals of His Majesty Jack White III. The young gentleman’s simple, almost boyish vocal delivery is tailor-made for the genre circus that rules the album with an iron fist and no mercy, although a more demanding ear would surely not object to a juicier approach on Pull This Blanket Off or, even better, the semi-acoustic fantasy These Stones Will Shout.
The Raconteurs don’t walk the classic path laid out by the textbook, but leave room for the imagination to run free. With the audacity and kitschy content chaos that Consolers of the Lonely brings along, the quartet’s inexhaustible inspiration becomes an indispensable element, the one ingredient without which it just doesn’t work. The Raconteurs show it off in reasonable measure and with a sound sense that suits the volatile nature of the band’s exciting musical expression.
Lineup
Brendan Benson: vocals, guitar, keyboards
Jack White III: vocals, keyboards
Jack L.J. Lawrence: bass, backing vocals
Patrick Keller: drums
Production
Jack White III Brendan Benson
Tracklist
1. Consoler of the Lonely
2. Salute Your Solution
3. You Don’t Understand Me
4. Old Enough
5. The Switch and the Spur
6. Hold Up
7. Top Yourself
8. Many Shades of Black
9. Five on the Five
10. Attention
11. Pull This Blanket Off
12. Rich Kid Blues
13. These stones Will Shout
14. Carolina Drama
