The Raconteurs - 'Consolers Of The Lonely' (XL) Released 24/03/08

Within the often narrow corridors of what is regarded as truly exciting in modern rock music, Jack White is a perpetual outlaw. He is compelled to extract, recreate and channel the howling spirits of his blues heroes in a way that is both reverent and utterly thrilling, translating them into a 21st century mutant pop blues that has captured the public imagination on a grand scale with the White Stripes.

In 2005, White formed The Raconteurs with Brendan Benson and fellow cohorts Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler. Striding across the great prairie, this modern Supergroup delivered ‘Broken Boy Soldiers’, an album which featured a bona fide smash hit single in ‘Steady As She Goes’ and generally made the most Zeppelin-esque sublime racket since, well, The White Stripes. Tours with Bob Dylan and album of the year press accolades followed, proving that White’s vision may be entrenched in tradition but that there was more than one way to skin a blues cat.      

‘Consolers Of The Lonely’ was sprung into the world like a Jack in the box last week only days after being announced.

The title tracks kicks off proceedings, a clarion call full of thunderous riffs and soaring vocal interplay between Benson and White, conjuring up a great sense of urgency and becoming the most exciting indictment of boredom that we’ve ever heard, suddenly taking a U-turn towards the end with guitar crunches that resemble a gang of velociraptors circling around The Who. It is a menacing rampage indeed and one that should have Kings of Leon looking nervously over their shoulders at Glastonbury. 

They don’t pause for breath before launching into the propulsive stomp of single ‘Salute Your Solution’, in which White’s inimitable vocals are harnessed as a pure force of nature, elevating the song’s simple arrangement to great new heights. If Cormac McCarthy turned his hand to producing records, we imagine that it would sound something like this.