Ten years since Blunderbuss, Jack White has now been releasing solo albums for longer than he was recording with The White Stripes. Despite his reliance on a limited palette of instruments, the 47-year-old has had a more varied career than most, and long-term followers will have a favourite guise, whether it’s bluesy and basic in The White Stripes, appealingly melodic in The Raconteurs or even stepping back to bash the drums in The Dead Weather.
As a solo act he has tried a bit of everything, even touring with two alternating backing bands, one male and one female. This year he’s made it easiest to pick a side, releasing two very different albums months apart. Fear of the Dawn, from April, was berserk, a hyperactive maelstrom overloaded with so many guitar effects it was as if he could make his instrument talk. It even had a rapper on it: Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest. This companion album, written during the same period, is sensible Jekyll to the other one’s Hyde. An overall feel of calm country folk calls to mind Beck’s frequent shifts between albums of cut-and-paste experiments and richer singer-songwriter fare.
