Listen Up: Jack White's new 'Blunderbuss'pick

By Jerry Shriver, USA TODAY

April 23, 2012

 
Critic's Rating:
3

Listen Up: Jack White's new 'Blunderbuss'
Jack White's first solo album, 'Blunderbuss,' is centered around his 2011 divorce from model Karen Elson. (Credit: By Jo McCaughey)
  • Album: Blunderbuss
  • Artist: Jack White
  • Release date: Apr. 24, 2012
  • Download: Love Interruption, Sixteen Saltines

Jack White, Blunderbuss

*** INDIE ROCK

More than just being his first solo album, Blunderbuss is Jack White's divorce album: Divorced last year from model Karen Elson, White pours his pain and anger into lyrics frequently shot through with violent and savage imagery.

In Freedom at 21 he rails against an abusive woman who displays "no responsibility, no guilt or morals''; in Love Interruption he lashes out at love itself and threatens murder; and Missing Pieces references dismemberment. (Oddly, Elson sings backup on the album.)

And divorced from the stark minimalist sound of his former White Stripes duo, White explores a diverse palette of sonic textures — fiddles, clarinets, pianos, organs and mandolins supplement the guitars.

While still operating within the framework of his Led Zep-influenced sound, he embraces a grab bag of musical styles — vaudeville on Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy, blues on Little Willie John's I'm Shakin, orchestration on Weep Themselves to Sleep and country-jazz on the first half of I Guess I Should Go To Sleep. Bluderbuss aims wide and often hits home.

>>Download:Love Interruption, Sixteen Saltines

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