Jack White – High Ball Stepper
SoundCloud
FormerWhite Stripe,Raconteurand all-around garage rock royalty, Jack White might have a big mouth and an even bigger opinion of himself (as proven lately with his recently retracted comments), but there’s no denying that, despite sounding like a jackass, he’s a very gifted and accomplished musician. This is a point he’s proven by providing some of the biggest post-millennial riffs to be filtered through an amplifier, and he continues to do so with his expanding solo material.
All bad publicity aside, withLazaretto,the multi-instrumentalist reminds us that, although he’s perhaps not as good as he thinks he is, he is still good — very good in fact. Solo outing number two sees him drift back into more rustic, soulful, Americana-like territories.Whiteuses fragile, high-pitched, folksy string work coupled with organ melodies and picked notesthat are meshed within the rough, bluesy fretwork that he’s wielded in prior and more prominent incarnations. It all shows why he’s still a major draw, why people still flock to his output and why his instrumental craftsmanship is still in fine form.
Lazarettoalsoreinforces that he isn’t too shabby in the lyrical department either. Although the album never settles on one particular tone, it seemingly has taken shape from the various emotional states following his and Karen Elson’s divorce. Within his songwriting,Whiteshows through certain flourishes that he can do subtle yet serious. In “Three Women” he sings, “I’m lonely at night, but I stay up until the break of day,” then goes tongue-in-cheek in “Alone in my Home” saying, “I’m becoming a ghost/So nobody can know me.” He also works the space in-between during “Just One Drink” as he sings, “You drink water, I drink gasoline/One of us is happy, one of us is mean.”
Pair this with the musical foundations of the record and, in my opinion, you have the better of his solo offerings thus far. It’s not better by a long stretch, but it does feel like it offers more, and right now that’s the best kind of publicity he could ask for. Love or hate what the man himself has to say, it’s hard to discard the idea that his work speaks volumes.
