Review: Jack White, Blunderbuss

Jack White's first solo album comes a little over a year after the announced breakup of The White Stripes, his best known band.  He subsequently cut two albums apiece with very different projects The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather.  It was expected that White would strike out on his own, but he was reluctant to do so.  In fact, Blunderbuss came into being rather accidentally after RZA (of the Wu-Tang Clan) didn't show up for a studio session and White used the time to develop his own material.  Blunderbuss hit the Billboard charts at #1, a first for White.

The best track may be "Hypocritical Kiss," with rollicking piano and lyrics like "I want names of the people that we know that are falling for this" and "You would sell your own mother out/And then betray your dead brother with another hypocritical kiss."  The album includes one cover, a Little Willie John song, "I'm Shakin'," with a spirited chorus of female backup singers.

Blunderbuss channels the sound of The White Stripes more than that of his other groups.  A likely reason is that The White Stripes was more his brainchild than either of the other, more populous bands were.  Still, the sound of Blunderbuss is more rock and roll and less garage band than the music of The White Stripes.

Rating:  4 out of 5 stars