By Zak Buciznsky
In-depth Editor
When I heard that Jack White had come out with his first solo album, Blunderbuss, I flew to my computer with an urgent sense of desperation. As a huge fan of Jack Whites other musical projects, (The White Stripes, The Dead Weather and The Raconteurs,) I had over-listened to his borderline genius blues-rock albums and I was all Jack Whited-out; that was, until I heard there was a new album of dark and edgy rock-blues.
But to my dismay, when I downloaded the album off that infernal system of Itunes, my Ipod was broken and I couldn’t download the album. I wasn’t about to experience the ear-orgasm of a lifetime through the sub-par speakers of my Mac, so after hours of slaving away at my glowing computer screen, I finally managed to get the new album on my Ipod and plugged into my speakers, but when I listened to the album, I realized, it wasn’t that good.
Despite Jack Whites previous albums of dark and edgy blues rock, Blunderbuss turned out to be a somewhat goofy and slightly boring compilation of just fairly good music that I expected to be the prolific rise of rock and roll among a wasteland of already horrid modern day music.
The first track to Blunderbuss sets the whole tone of the album. The song is based heavily on a keyboard melody that takes away the edgy tone Jack White is so good at.
A lot of the songs on Blunderbuss have this same feeling, with songs based around nothing but a folksy acoustic strumming or a honky-tonk piano sound, the album just doesn’t have the feeling one would hope for from a Jack White album.
Jack White seems to be testing new waters with musical styles, which isn’t a total catastrophe, in tracks like Weep Themselves to Sleep, White’s vocals resemble a political activist screeching poetry into a microphone, which, combined with an almost classic rock feeling, makes an interesting and great song.
But sometimes White takes too much of a leap with his experimentation. In the song Love Interruption, White moans a little tune over the simple melody of an acoustic guitar. This song was little more than a time wasting track meant for skipping over.
However, not all of Blunderbuss has this same tone, in fact the second song, Sixteen Saltines, has a Raconteurs-like guitar riff that brings back some of that good old Jack White sound.
And Jack White’s song writing ability has still maintained its strangely poetic, but bluesy feeling which definitely makes the album worth listening to.
In the end, Blunderbuss was an underwhelming album, it is definitely worth listening to, especially for die-hard Jack White fans, but it didn’t have the edgy or even catchy sound that most people can appreciate.
Categories:
Jack White’s new album, Blunderbuss: an explosion of average music.
April 30, 2012