While other big-draw names in music
have rebelled against the major-label
machine recently by releasing their
music independently just to prove
(maybe even to themselves) that they
can (Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead are
the biggest names to do so), Raconteurs
masterminds Jack White and Brendan
Benson chose to flex their muscles and
throw their weight around a little in a
totally different way: two weeks before
its ultimate release, the duo shipped
their side project’s new a
lbum, Consolers Of the Lonely, to Warner Brothers with the understa
nding that no changes would be made a
nd no considerations for such profess
ional criticism would be entertained
under any circumstances. Raconteurs&r
squo; label didn’t balk at the la
ck of control and did not argue, they s
imply did as they were instructed.
It’s easy to understand
why there was no fight ins
tigated on those terms. Consolers
of the Lonely is, without quest
ion, White and Benson’s crowning
musical achievement; nothing the pair
has done separately in other bands or
together even comes close to this vin
tage, retro-rock masterpiece. Fo
r Consolers’ fourteen tracks, R
aconteurs have taken pages from the rock
royalty that found fame in the 70s&mda
sh;as well as, of course, The Beatles&
mdash;and overlapped them with
an honest-to-god musical enthusiast&rsq
uo;s sense of construction. In other
words, White and Benson were born and
raised upon the likes of T. Rex, Bob Dyl
an, The Band, Ted Nugent and Th
e Beatles, and you can tell they still
love them but, critically, they saw t
he opportunities those bands originall
y missed and so they’ve taken the
liberty of “fixing” them
here to produce a bombastic record fo
r all time.
The sucker pu
nch that the band lays on listeners righ
t off is that they wear each of those s
ounds on their sleeve as they go an
d make them all readily recogniza
ble in order to point the way. In &ldq
uo;Old Enough,” for example, Racon
teurs crossbreed CSNY’s multi-har
mony vocal writing and “Whatcha g
onna do about it” urgency with t
he band’s roots-inspired and folk
sy songwriting, which lets the Work
ingman’s Dead vibes hang
in the background of that and the band
throws some Steppenwolf-styled vin
tage keyboard washes out front for goo
d measure. Elsewhere, the ghosts of
Motor City Mania color the title trac
k, Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles&
rsquo; pop-filled disillusionment couple
d with Cheap Trick’s love of the
same sound and their ability to infl
ate it and make it sound even big
ger are the hooks laced into &ldqu
o;You Don’t Understand Me,”
and the German cabaret that inspire
d Bowie for three albums ba
ck when informs “The Switch
and the Spur” before the b
and runs back to do it all again.
No wonder the image on the back c
over of Consolers of the Lonely< /em> features Raconteurs bassist Jack
Lawrence clutching a handful of .45s&
mdash;it removes any doubt of w
hat the band was listening to while the
members were writing this.
With so many sounds being absorb
ed and spat back, it’d be easy
to think that The Raconteurs were grasp
ing at straws and trying to recreate t
he magic of their debut, but the tr
uth is that, by incorporating older,
established and classic styles int
o their own all-star brew of fine songwr
iting, they’ve far surpassed it.
Consolers of the Lonely is
a landmark record for White, Benson an
d The Raconteurs. They’ve s
et the bar incredibly high for future r
eleases with Consolers but, at the
same time, express a staggering amount
of talent and versatility that make
s it perfectly reasonable to believ
e that they could not only do it again,
but they can do better too. Listening t
o this album, you know the sky&r
squo;s the limit as far as what this ban
d is capable of.
solers of th
e Lonely is out now on Third Man/Wa
rner.
More on The Raconte
urs here: www.therac
onteurs.com
