Connected By Love/Respect Commander | Jack White | Single Review

  Today we are looking at new music that I have been waiting for somewhat impatiently for the last 6 months or so.
Ever since Third Man Records’ official Instagram posted a picture of Jack White and a group of studio musicians with
the tag saying that White was recording a new album, I’ve been hotly anticipating this one. I was halfway expecting the
single to release before the end of the year, but it took until three days ago for us to finally get the first true single,
Connected by Love.

    Now because this was released like a vinyl with the single and then the B side I will go ahead and look at both of
them in the same spot as a double track review. First off the single, Connected by Love. This song simultaneously
sounds very different and exactly the same as everything else by Jack White. The track is heavily driven by lo-fi

synthesizers that remind me of some the Dead Weather’s songs and a drum machine. The contrast between the
somewhat pristine electronic elements and Jack’s raw and unprocessed vocals is really interesting, especially
when coupled with the gospel background singers.

    Along with these elements there is also what sounds like acoustic drums (mainly cymbals) and organ that adds
to the mix of electronic music and gospel blues on this track. Overall I really enjoy this track as it sounds like the
same style I’ve come to expect from Jack White but with some new flavors that I wouldn’t. This is most evident on
the organ solo on the bridge that has very similar timing and phrasing to the Jack White would do a guitar solo;
similar ideas, different sounds.

    The B-Side Respect Commander is a bit different however, being extremely experimental with it’s incorporation
of various sound and samples, especially through the intro. While the sounds do feel a bit random and thrown together
they still feel like they are building up to something before dropping down a slow blues when the vocals come in.
This track also makes use of both drum machines and acoustic drums, but they are kept separate this time, with the
drum machine driving the opening part and acoustic drums sitting behind the blues guitar driven main section.

    I really enjoy the way that the synths are mixed into the main section behind the guitar and vocals, adding an
interesting new flavor to Jack’s arsenal. Overall the main section is vintage Jack White, with it’s build from a slow
blues to an insane guitar solo being something Jack has done going all the way back to the first White Stripes album
on something like I Fought Piranhas. The experimental bits on the intro are really interesting and cool to me, but
what I really like is that even though the sounds and ideas may be different, so far the core is still Jack White playing
the blues.

The White Stripes Icky Thump: Throwback Album of The Week

Throwback Album of The Week is posted every Wednesday

    Today, in honor of the 10 year anniversary of Icky Thump as well as the impending delivery of my Third Man Records Vault Package 33, I am reviewing one of my favorite albums of all time, Icky Thump by The White Stripes. Icky Thump is the final studio album recorded by The White Stripes before their breakup in 2011 and was the first album I ever heard featuring Jack White. Icky Thump actually sits as a bit of an oddity in The White Stripes collection, featuring the loudest and most abrasive sound of any of their records. While each record by The White Stripes has it’s own variation on their core sound, Icky Thump took that sound and cranked it up to 11.

    The opening track by the same name as the album was an eye opener the first time I heard it; I didn’t know you could have a song with a guitar riff as the chorus. The heavy palm muted guitar on the verses perfectly mixes with Meg White’s drumming to create this track’s punk swagger and build up to the crescendo of the chorus. The demented keyboard scattered throughout and Jack’s rapid fire vocals create the perfect opening track.

    The next track is a favorite of mine because of the lyrics, where Jack mocks and offers advice to someone who doesn’t understand the difference between love and following commands. You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told) is one of the snarkier tracks on here as even though Jack is attempting to offer advice he can’t help but be annoyed by their lack of understanding. The instrumentation on here is classic White Stripes, a perfect mix of rock aesthetic firmly rooted in the Blues.

    Next we have 300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues, the mostly acoustic soft track of this album. Jack has an affinity for putting one of two of these on every album and this is a particularly strong one. Despite some very nonsensical lyrics the track conveys the feeling of disinterest and boredom that I think Jack was going for. The lyrics that aren’t seemingly just there cause they sound good or that are about Jack’s love of redheads seem to be conveying a sense of pointlessness.

    The last track I’m going to cover in depth is Conquest, one of the most interesting tracks on this album. While Jack has used similar styles before (I Think I Smell A Rat) he goes all out with the Mariachi style here, featuring a horn section to follow his vocals or guitar riffing. This track features some of the heaviest guitar sounds Jack has ever done, sounding like they would be at home on a metal album. The song about a Don Juan character who winds up falling for his conquest and being the prey to her marital ambitions works perfectly with the music video that features Jack literally becoming the prey in a bull fight.

    The rest of the album is similarly fantastic with highlights being the bagpipe driven tracks Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn and St. Andrew along with the spoken word track Rag & Bone. Aside from their first album, this is the only White Stripes album that I will routinely listen to all the way through rather than skipping around for my favorite tracks. The album is paced amazingly well, ebbing and flowing without ever losing any steam or hitting a dead spot. I highly recommend this to any rock fans and especially to anyone who likes similar acts like Arctic Monkeys, The Kills, Black Keys, Queens of The Stone Age or Royal Blood.

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Jack White Battle Cry- Single Review

Single Review is posted every Monday (usually)

    With a new Jack White album on the way I found myself going back and listening to the last piece of music we heard him do earlier this year. This song was a promotional track called Battle Cry that White created for his joint venture with Detroit Tigers second baseman Ian Kinsler. White, the Detroit native and huge Tigers fan that he is, went into business with Kinsler to create the baseball bat manufacturing company Warstic. Shortly after going into business together White created an instrumental to serve the twofold purpose of backing a commercial for the brand and to be Kinsler’s walk out music.

    The song was apparently trying to capture the primal feeling of a Native American hunter chasing down his prey, hence the inclusion of the tribal battle cries of Native Americans. Along with the battle cries, the track is dominated by some of the clearest and sharpest guitar work I’ve ever heard by White. I think that since this was for a commercial Jack decided to forgo the slightly lo-fi production he usually prefers and air on the side of making every sound tight and menacing.

    The main riff sounds reminiscent of Queen of The Stone Age to me, having fuzzed out guitar riffing that approaches metal at times. The guitar solo on the bridge is all Jack White however, with the signature pitch shifted screeching guitar solos that have long been a staple of White’s sound. He’s more subtle with it this time however as he lets the notes ring out and slowly shifts them up or down to make the warble off key. This effect creates a really off kilter and evil sounding shriek that I suppose is Jack’s own Battle Cry.

With how tight and focused the guitar sounds on this track I’d be curious to find out what Jack played for this recording. This doesn’t sound the Telecaster or Parsons Triple Jet he’s used for his first two solo albums. It does sound like it could be a higher output humbucker equip guitar, such as the EVH Wolfgang he was holding in the picture Third Man Records posted of him recording his new album. If this heavier and focused sound is foreshadowing some of his new album, I certainly won’t complain.

This track serves it’s purpose, it’s a pump up anthem that sounds sick behind an ad spot. Is it Jack’s best? No, for one it’s an instrumental and Jack’s love of simple melodies doesn’t transfer as well without vocals over top. You can see the track in the context of the commercial below.  

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The White Stripes: An Album a Day

An Album a Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

In honor of Jack White's birthday this past weekend I thought I'd take a look at his first album with his first band The White Stripes. Similarly to another punk influenced band, Green Day, The White Stripes debut album is extremely dirty, grainy and lo fi to the extent of sounding more like a collection of demos than a studio album. Unlike Green Day however, the style of The White Stripes actually works really well with all of the grime. It was clear right from the beginning that the White Stripes were a raw and nasty sounding punk band who loved the blues.

    Before we get too deep into this review let me state, I am a huge Jack White fan. Jack White makes up about 75% of my interest in learning the guitar and the gear that I’ve bought for my guitar. Despite this, I wasn’t much of a White Stripes fan until fairly recently; while Icky Thump was the first time I heard White I was way more into his two solo albums before I ever went back and listened to anything else from The White Stripes. Ironically, one of the things that I love about The White Stripes now is what turned me off of them in the first place, noise.

    While the production would get better on their later albums, The White Stripes were always a noisey band, being heavy in the most non metal way possible. The perfect example of this can be seen in the only single to come off of this album The Big Three Killed My Baby. This track features Jack White and his guitar competing to see who can scream louder at the big three auto manufactures that he blames for ruining his hometown of Detroit. This is one of the few songs where Jack White sound legitimately angry as well as being one of the few songs he’s written that is clearly about his own personal experiences.

    Along with standout original tracks such as I Fought Piranhas, Jimmy The Exploder and Astro, The White Stripes debut also features multiple covers. Jack shows off his blues influences with a reworking of the Robert Johnson song Stop Breakin’ Down Blues entitled simply Stop Breaking Down. Along with covering Johnson, White also included lines from his favorite bluesman Son House, utilizing the chorus of John The Revelator in Cannon. And last in his trio of blues covers is a semi gothic piano rendition of the blues standard St. James Infirmary Blues.

    Along with these blues covers, this album also features a cover of Bob Dylan’s One More Cup of Coffee. The cover is played fairly straight, only deviating in Jack’s style of guitar playing. After listening to both versions I would have been perfectly okay never hearing the Bob Dylan version, and I actually like Dylan.

This entire album has the band wearing their influences on their sleeve, from the blues covers and punk attitude to the smattering of folk influences. Interestingly, this album is a lot like White’s solo album Lazaretto in that it can work as a rosetta stone for all of his other work. Both albums feature folk songs that are similar to the style of The Raconteurs and gothic tracks that are similar to The Dead Weather.

Unlike the previous first album I reviewed from Twenty One Pilots, it is clear that Jack and Meg had their sound and their identity down by the time they recorded this record. The only thing that would really change between this album and The White Stripes later work is production value, but in all honesty this music works fines with hum, buzz and noise. I wouldn’t say this is my favorite White Stripes album, but it is a strong contender for second place.

Album on Third Man Records

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The Black Belles: An Album A Day

An album a day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

            In the music industry there is a tried and true formula for making money, get a group of attractive young, mildly talented girls and give them something to sing. The Black Belles are the Third Man Records equivalent of the girl group. Featuring Third Man Records multi instrumentalist Olivia Jean as front woman of the quartet, The Black Belles truly encapture the Third Man Records blues rock sound.

The four piece consists of Ruby Rogers on bass guitar, Shelby Lynne on drums, Christina Norwood on synth and Olivia Jean with vocals, guitar and organ duties. One of the first things that struck me with their self titled album is that only one song, “Honky Tonk Horror” eclipses the 3 minute mark and the entire album being around 27 minutes long.

The first few tracks start off strong, with the opener “Leave You With With a Letter” being one of the strongest on the album. This track features a driving blues rock guitar and distorted bass riff as the centerpiece while the drums pound out in a 3/4 tempo. The psychotic waltz fits with Jean’s vocals in both tone and delivery as she goes up and down in pitch to match the guitar. This is one of the tracks where the Belles shine the brightest, displaying their own twist on the Third Man sound.

Unfortunately for most of the albums the Belles sound like a tribute band, owing equal parts of their sound to Jack White and Kills frontwoman Alison Mosshart. They come by it honestly with Jean herself having been a feature in Jack White’s backing band, but it would be nice for them to cultivate more of their own style. Rather than having their own sound,  The Belles often sound like a poor man’s copy of White and Mosshart’s supergroup, The Dead Weather.
    While sounding similar to The Dead Weather is not a bad thing by itself, the Belles do little to bring anything new to the Goth Blues Rock sound that they share. The similarities go so far that it sounds like Christina Norwood is playing the exact synthesizer that Dean Fertita uses with The Dead Weather.

In fairness, The Belles do have a few songs where they do add their own twist on the sound, such as Breathing Down My Neck. This track jumps back and forth between loud fuzz guitar filled verses and a calmer folk styled chorus. While it features some of the same elements as The Dead Weather, Jean adds enough of her own style to where she doesn’t just sound like a Mosshart imitator. Jean’s guitar solo towards the end of the track is rather simple blues rock fare, but it serves the song and leads to the outro.

None of the other tracks are particularly bad, but they also are not anything special. Songs like “The Tease”, “Honky Tonk Horror” and “Pushing Daisies” lack an original style, while “Hey Velda” and “Howling At The Moon” are just boring. Olivia Jean is clearly a talented singer, but for much of the album she lacks a distinct sound and the album suffers for it.

Ultimately, most of this album is solid with a few real gems that stick out. Fans of garage rock and alternative artists like Jack White, The Kills or Queens Of The Stone Age will likely enjoy this album, as well as those putting together a Third Man Records playlist. But for me, to be honest when I hear The Black Belles I would rather just go listen to The Dead Weather.

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