The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely (2008)
April 11th, 2008
Many of the so-called “super groups” are less than fantastic and have a tendency to merely bank off of their successful past and don’t feel the need to create actual works of worth. The Raconteurs do not fit into this category as is evident with their second album, Consolers of the Lonely which was released on March 25th. Jack White and his comrades are able to create music that is wholly unique from anything that they created and played in their other more famous bands.
Consolers of the Lonely is an audio trip for the listener. Immersed within the tracks are the voices of the performers, and what I assume to be their friends, talking, laughing, joking and making notes as to how the track will sound in final publication. While this is not a new tactic in making a record feel more “real,” if is definitely effective in reassuring the listener that these musicians are real people who just want to make a bunch of good songs together. The fact that they are individually famous has nothing to do with what they are doing when they are together.
It is easy for the listener to get lost in these tracks and fade out of the real world into another dimension built on heavy-handed piano chords, raging and squelching guitars and Jack White’s unmistakable whine. The harmonies of “You Don’t Understand Me” create such an ambiance of sadness in the listener’s ear that the pain is actually tangible. It is easy to feel the desperation in White’s voice when he says that “there’s got to be a better way to do what we do.” While it really is just another love song, it is possible that this is the most genuine one I’ve heard in awhile. “You Don’t Understand Me” goes through the battle that so many go through once they realize that their mate just doesn’t get it.
It is so easy in this age of technology for a band to whip out an album, throw down the vocals, double-, triple-, or quadruple-track everything to make it sound like a bunch of people are involved and release utter rubbish to the public. This album isn’t like that. Each song has intricate interwoven pieces and a story of their own. Every time you listen to a song you hear something new and different. This is not an album that is easily overplayed. Every song finds a way to hold the listener’s interest in a different way with every spin, almost as if it were getting better with age.
The Raconteurs have gone out on a limb by trying something new in the name of experimental rock. The intermittent trumpet and the use of guitar as almost a percussion instrument bring elements of jazz and funk into tracks like “The Switch and the Spur.” In many ways, this is a risky record due to unusual instrumentation, the complexity of the musical arrangements, intelligence in both music and lyrics and the mixture of different styles in order to create something wholly unique — but somehow The Raconteurs pull it off.
Consolers of the Lonely is unique, dynamic and real in ways that the vast majority of today’s popular music could never be. It’s good to hear a band enjoy what they do for once.
Final Grade: A
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