The Raconteurs - Consolers Of The Lonely Review

''I am big. It's the pictures that got small.'' Sunset Boulevard's unhinged silver-screen diva Norma Desmond spoke these immortal words more than half a century ago, but the claim could easily transpose itself to Consolers of the Lonely, a brawny, joyful plundering of the classic-rock catalog. Where other indie-rooted artists laboriously perfect their tributes to the same few touchstones — the Velvet Underground, Pixies, Sonic Youth — Jack White, Brendan Benson, and their fellow Raconteurs hitch country and long-haired funk to a boisterous blooze-rock wagon with nary a nod to subtlety or art-school cool....full text Our first reaction to the follow-up to 2006's 'Broken Boy Soldiers' – which was only completed the first week in March but has been rushed into the shops and download services – was written as we heard the record for the first time. Check out our song-by-song verdict now:

'Consoler Of The Lonely'
A Who-esque riff kicks off the album, with tambourine shakes and shuddering bass adding to a rollocking kick-off, Brendan Benson wailing about being "bored to tears" before the song cracks up in velocity with a searing, electric Eric Clapton-esque riff....full text Jack White is not the same boy we've always known. Although he's played the part of both the coy adolescent and the Southern-gentleman-on-the-skids in the past, the lead White Stripe's work with the Raconteurs is perhaps most akin to late musical puberty. Given the former Jack Gillis' preoccupation with stage character, it doesn't seem far-fetched to hear the Raconteurs as an acknowledgment that White needed a new creative persona to deal with these tingly arena-rock feelings he's been having lately.

With a machine gun groove, parts of the album-opening title track on the quartet's surprise new release, Consolers of the Lonely, sound like the "love gun's loaded" bridge to Spinal Tap's "Big Bottom." And while one can easily imagine smoke machines spurting during many of the album's 13 other tracks, there is no irony in the mix. Just fun....full text