The songs are concise - the whole album clocks in at barely half an hour - and showboating tricksiness is largely kept in check. Level settles simply for sounding like Thin Lizzy, but struts along with such a swagger that it proves almost impossible to resist. Broken Boy Soldier tries putting deafening, Led Zeppelin-esque drum breaks behind swirling Beatles-y psychedelia to considerable effect. Hands opts to switch satisfyingly between a vast, distorted riff and honeyed pop verses. The end result seems unlikely to change the face of music as we know it, but it's often breathtakingly executed: there seems to be a natural empathy between White and his less famous bandmate.Įach track finds a different meeting-point between the two protagonists' different approaches. What the Raconteurs offer is the middle-ground between White's muscular, distorted blues and Benson's Who-goes-bubblegum approach. Happily, the expected torrent of self-indulgence doesn't materialise. What is going to happen when he's unbound from the strictures of his day job? Such fears are compounded further by the fact that the Raconteurs have at their helm a man who, in the White Stripes, has made a career out of deliberately restricting himself in everything from instrumentation to the colour of his clothes. The rock star thinks they are granting the public a peek at a hitherto-unnoticed side of their multi-faceted genius, the public ends up stuck with some frightful self-indulgence they never would have countenanced had said rock star's name not been in the credits. The downside is that, traditionally, successful rock-star side projects are the half-price-Dairy-Milk-with-any-newspaper-offer in the WH Smith of pop: something nobody really wants or needs in the first place, eagerly foisted upon you as if it were both an unmissable opportunity and an act of unbelievable munificence. Such are the benefits of having the White Stripes' Jack White sharing lead vocals and songwriting duties with critically acclaimed power-pop auteur Brendan Benson the rhythm section of Cincinnati garage-rockers the Greenhornes brings up the rear. Whichever way you slice it - and the band's members have tried everything, including describing themselves as "a new band of old friends" and, emphatically, "not a rock star's side project" - the Nashville-based quartet are a rock star's side project, which accounts for the magazine covers, the headlining appearances at this summer's festivals and Jim Jarmusch's keenness to direct the video for their debut single. O mens augur ill for the Raconteurs' debut.
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