So does the extended bridge of “Sunday Driver,” a mordantly funny tune about someone macking on your sister.

That bridge adds some swaggering power pop, with a flickwrist riff that plays like Keith Richards moonlighting in Big Star. AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine [+] Reconvening after a decade's absence, the … White sings the verses with frenzied abandon, Benson the choruses with calm melodiousness. There are few surprises on Help Us Stranger, but that tends to be the case when you’re in the hands of capable adults. The result is an air of timidity that dampens the pleasures this album does offer. They’ve built a rock record that is sequenced perfectly; sturdy, but never staid. He pushes White toward the band's more grounded stake in rock's classic landscape and also gives it the pop-leaning melodic edge much of White's other work lacks. The needle skips all over bassist Jack Lawrence’s old-timey cowboy ballad “Help Me Stranger,” hopping to clavinet funk, then riding out on Patrick Keeler’s “Funky Drummer”-like sixteenths. This site uses cookies to improve your experience. The Raconteurs’ new album, Help Us Stranger, the band’s first in a decade, distills this denser, more elaborate brand of rock and roll while still showcasing White’s formidable songwriting chops. (That White largely refrains from the cypher on the funk-rock groove of “What’s Yours Is Mine” is a special mercy.) Recall the indelible moment in “Me & My Dog,” where Phoebe Bridgers’ voice becomes a scooped-out husk of itself, and she murmurs, ashamed, “I cried at your show with the teenagers.” Even in her own song, she is at somebody else’s show, her story dissolving into a crowd of other stories. Pitchfork is the most trusted voice in music. Toss in the exceptional work of Lawrence and Keeler, and you’ve got a group that may benefit from the prominence of one member but truly makes its mark as a team. Then they decided it was time for a break … a long one. White’s tech talk has been the throughline for coverage of Help Us, Stranger. It doesn’t help that “Bother” is an aggro screed about modernity: White hollers about “all your clicking and swiping” like a demented Dora the Explorer. —didn’t get more percussive than handclaps. It’s probably safe to presume that most reviews of this record will make a special point of highlighting the contributions of Benson. The Raconteurs: Help Us Stranger review – classic rock undone by aggro (Third Man Records) Jack White’s eccentricity is well contained by his … Some light improvisation in the recording booth lends spontaneity without veering into the self-indulgence that so plagued White’s latest solo album, 2018’s Boarding House Reach.
This is the sound of a rock 'n' roll band trying to reclaim some balance at the end of a decade, and doing a noble job of it. Both songs received videos, which were shot a week before the release. There’s nothing new under the sun or on this record, but when the riffs are crisp and the harmonies tight, that’s a complaint that’s at least a couple of spots down the list. The simple grace of the opening guitar playing on opener “Bored and Razed” would be at home on any White Stripes album. The Raconteurs leave their boldest move for the end. "Thoughts and Prayers" starts as a nearly acoustic hymn before collapsing into a stirring celebration of sound, complete with "Baba O'Riley"-like violin and fuzzy guitar. The track’s tongue-in-cheek title further speaks to the notion that while White and company aren’t positing that these songs should be taken as jokes, there’s no need to be too serious about them either. The title of “Shine the Light On Me” nods to, , and its piano plonks like Nicky Hopkins’ on “. From fully realized bands (like the Alison Mosshart-fronted Dead Weather) to one-off collaborations (like his duet with Alicia Keys for the James Bond track “Another Way to Die,” or partnering with Danger Mouse and Norah Jones on the Spaghetti Western album “Rome”), White has always kept a full dance card, before and after the White Stripes disbanded in 2011.

More importantly, this album is timely proof that White may actually be at his best when he’s constrained by the framework of collaboration. Jack White has kept busy since the last Raconteurs album in 2008. These include three albums with his ‘other’, heavier supergroup The Dead Weather and three freewheeling solo albums. Other indie rock groups—supergroups, like boygenius even—are presently making music that is orders of magnitude greater than this record, often with vastly less experience, vastly fewer resources, and vastly higher barriers to entry. These are not anthems of a peaceful army; the Raconteurs are canny enough to evoke rather than poach. On their 2006 debut, “Broken Boy Soldiers,” and its 2008 follow-up, “Consolers of the Lonely,” White and Benson traded off vocals and guitar licks in a blues-tinged, sometimes psychedelic take on classic rock. The result is Help Us Stranger, the group’s richest batch of songs to date. And White launched a solo career, which has also spawned a trio of records since the last time White made one with Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence, and Patrick Keeler. On their 2006 debut, “Broken Boy Soldiers,” and its 2008 follow-up, “Consolers of the Lonely,” White and Benson traded off vocals and guitar licks in a blues-tinged, sometimes psychedelic take on classic rock. White’s tech talk has been the throughline for coverage of, on the UK’s Channel 4 that he’s never owned a cellphone got a lot of attention (and was possibly just a bit of obfuscation on his part).
Keeler’s thumping kitwork gives the song heft, counterbalancing a through-a-phonebooth vocal take from White that otherwise would have removed all weight. On Boarding House Reach, that meant indulgent auteurism and, uh, rapping. “Now That You’re Gone” offers a scuffed-up take on early soul: the guitar solo curdles like a Moscow Mule in corroded copper; Lawrence gooses the vibe with a Septavox synth, available at the Third Man online store. The White Stripes were still active when Jack White joined forces with solo artist Brendan Benson (sharing songwriting and lead vocals), backed by The Greenhornes’ rhythm section Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler, to form their supergroup.. Benson’s always been the Orr to White’s Ocasek, and that’s never more apparent than here.

It’s probably safe to presume that most reviews of this record will make a special point of highlighting the contributions of Benson. But it's reliable, something you can't exactly say about much of White's recent oddball turns. Essential Tracks: “Bored and Razed”, “Now That You’re Gone”, and “Thoughts and Prayers”, Ranking: Every Jack White Album from Worst to Best, Rihanna goes day drinking with Seth Meyers, Jack White Reworks "Ball and Biscuit", Plays Eddie Van Halen Guitar on SNL: Watch, Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten Says He's Voting for Trump in 2020 Election, Larry David Marries Girlfriend Ashley Underwood, Pearl Jam to Celebrate 30th Anniversary of First Concert with Archival Performance of Ten, Jack White Comes to the Rescue as Last-Minute SNL Musical Guest, TikTok's Fleetwood Mac Skateboarder Gets a Truck Full of Cranberry Juice from Ocean Spray, R.I.P. Another side project, the Dead Weather, released three albums. Opening track “Born and Razed” devotes its first minute-plus to twin-guitar noodle and full-band fanfare, but when the band punches from a typically yelpy, third-way White verse (“keeping an eye on my grindstone future / staying away from the left and the right”) into the yearning chorus, it’s like watching a racecar dust you. Album Review: Bright Eyes’ ‘Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was’, Haim’s ‘Women in Music Pt. Help Us Stranger is undoubtedly a rock 'n' roll record. There is never cause to encourage an artist to experiment less, but in White’s case, his alliance with Benson remains his most viable avenue for continuing to mine the Detroit garage rock sound that first brought the White Stripes to prominence. Which may or may not be a better result than “Don’t Bother Me,” a song whose vocal pomposity reaches for Mercury but grabs hold of. Their tone throughout is one of boredom, even irritation—with themselves, with anyone who might be listening, with the mundanities of making music. Here, it means colliding virtuosic instrumental flash into grownup gloom. Help Us Stranger must now contend with the strength of a new indie rock field, and the mere fact of White’s affiliation is not nearly as compelling as it once was. White has his own share of clangers; the frantic “Don’t Bother Me” falls into the grumpy get-off-my-lawn-ism that “Thoughts and Prayers” so deftly sidesteps, while “What’s Yours Is Mine” squanders its Southern rock energy on an abrupt midsection slowdown that even the album’s catchiest riff can’t quite correct. Let’s hope it’s not another decade before this rich collaboration entertains us again. The Raconteurs have never been coy about pastiche, but on this record, their motivation for mining the past feels firmly rooted in fear of the unfamiliar. So does the extended bridge of “Sunday Driver,” a mordantly funny tune about someone macking on your sister. What’s Yours Is Mine is muscular funk-rock, as White raps “There ain’t no difference between yours and mine” with macho emphasis on what’s his. The Raconteurs, Help Us Stranger ****.

Pepper’s, less tribute than hacky pageantry.

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