Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely review

3.5 stars (out of 5)


So the Raconteur's debut album sounded like exactly what it was. An album somewhat hastily put together that was based around a handful of excellent songs and filled with songs that neither of the two principal songwriters in the group, Jack White and Brendan Benson, thought good enough when they wrote them for their projects, the white stripes and Brendan's solo career. That's not to say it was a bad album, the highs were really really high. They kicked you in the gut with Level and were extremely catchy with Steady As She Goes. However, the album really lacked the consistency that seperates great bands from assemblages of good musicians coming together for a short time. So this time around, would their album fall into the same rut?

Consolers of the Lonely comes out punching, and hard, with the title track and Salute Your Solution. The Raconteurs certainly find themselves playing more together than they ever did on the previous album here. All the parts really fit well together on these two songs. The tempo change into a Jack White freakout solo followed by a big bass line about halfway through Salute Your Solution is defintiely a high point of the album.

Just when you think this album is just out to cut your face off, they throw a nice change of pace with the piano intro of you don't understand me. While not a particularly amazing song, it does show a few things you'd never see on a white stripes album, some pretty vocal harmonies and subtle rhythym playing from Jack. However, the song does drag a little. The chorus isn't particularly catchy, but the song is structured in such a way that it really needs a catchy chorus.

I consider the next song, Old Enough, to be the highlight of the album. The organ comping, mixed in with the great fiddle playing really gives it a dixie dregs type feel, while the chorus and verses are all catchy. Jack really plays well on this song without ever taking over with the gigantic jack riff that we know from the white stripes and the last raconteurs album. the last 45 seconds ends with the band all playing together for a great ending to a great song. The next song, the switch and the spur, continues the same feel from Old Enough. Just as you were starting to yearn for some big jack guitaristy, it delivers about 3 minutes into the song.

On Hold up, the band returns to the driving rave-ups they started the album with. Big intro featuring a great wah wah guitar line. The song doesn't really make it to that next level of a great song, but its very very good. Featuring probably the best guitar work on the album, both throughout the song and in Jack's massive solo.

They slow it back down for a slow simmering blues number in Top Yourself that has some greasy (and that's a good thing) Jack White slide guitar and some really driving acoustic guitar licks. Outro is pure jack white in the very very good sense. This is very white stripeish.

I think the album starts to turn south on Many Shades of Black. We have the same horns as we did on the switch and the spur, but they sound more forced here. Its a 50ish groove, but nothing is really catchy, there are no big guitars, there is nothing that elevates this song from much above mediocre. This is B-side material and its placed in a very critical juncture in the album.

So instead of putting a great song to get the ablum back on track, we here insert a song that seems to be weird for the sake of being weird. There isn't anything particularly interesting. You keep thinking this song is just going to explode into something major, but it just never does. The same can be said for the next song, only notable thing is that it uses the line "now that you ahve my attention, what are you gonna do?" right when the album is starting to lose my attention and I'm wondering what they are doing here. Again, its not a bad song, but its not great, and there hasn't been much of anything great for a while.

The next three songs are okay, they drag and that's about all I think I'll ever need to say about them. I'm starting to wonder why there is this much filler. There are 14 songs on this album, they're almost all over 3 minutes, can't we just cut a couple of them out? Its hard to fault them for putting in more music, but I think a few of these songs between top yourself and carolina drama could have been (bonus songs) tacked on at the end. They really break up the excellent flow the album had established early on. I mean if Jack White is anything, he's not boring and he throws down huge riffs, and here we have a group of average songs that could really use some of that magic. You have to wonder if Jack forgot who he is briefly.


Carolina Drama ends the album on a good note. It's Jack White telling a story, in a slow driving simmer, the song building energy slowly until it explodes at the very end.


This is a very good album. There is more good material than the previous album, there isn't as much great material and there are too many songs that are just filler and they're all lined up in a row. You can tell this is a band carried by the genius of Jack White, when Jack White isn't 100% committed to the band. This album starts off rocking and it ends on a great song. You get glimpses of what they could be, but its just not consistent enough to cross over into great territory. Its a shame too, from the glimpses, I could really see the Raconteurs surpassing anything the White Stripes have done if Jack really threw himself into the band for 2-3 years.