Jack White - Lazaretto

Let’s be honest - opening with such dubious lyrics as those of ‘Three Women’ is one hell of a risk. It might be a re-working of a Blind Willie McTell number from 1928, but even for a man whose entire career is built on ‘relaying’ the blues, White’s in murky waters. If it’s supposed to be third-party storytelling or even parody, those references to Detroit, Nashville and redheads aren’t helping him get that message across.

His signature guitar licks are scattered throughout, and while none are as immediate or as punky as ‘Blunderbuss’’ ‘Sixteen Saltines’, ‘Lazaretto’ feels more guitar-based as a whole – most excitingly on instrumental ‘High Ball Stepper’. There’s a smattering of White’s Nashville environs too – the country-style female vocals joining in on ‘Temporary Ground’ are sublime, and

on ‘That Black Bat Licorice’, an outstanding, hip-hop indebted number, even stretch as far as getting their own introduction. “Now say the same damn thing with the violin” is surely a contender for 2014’s Timberlake “drums” moment.

That ‘Want and Able’ is, we’re told, the self-styled sibling to ‘Effect and Cause’ on ‘Icky Thump’ comes as little surprise; there’s much of ‘Lazaretto’ – the soft repetition, the swirling Americana, the frequent lyrical references to ghosts – that echoes those last two White Stripes records. And still there’s so much more going on here. In taking his time, mining old material of his own as well as others’, swapping and switching personnel between sessions and embracing a little more of the 21st Century, ‘Lazaretto’ is perhaps the most conventionally made of White’s back catalogue. And for an artist as brilliantly unconventional as he, could prove itself more of a test than any of its predecessors. A test passed with flying colours (or at least various shades of blue).

Tags: Jack White, Reviews, Album Reviews