Broken Boy Soldiers

I was in Princeton Record Exchange to pick up the new Arcade Fire CD (which I will discuss here when I've heard it all the way through) and I thought I'd pick up something as well. I happened upon the "R" bin, and saw The Raconteurs' 2006 CD Broken Boy Soldiers. As a tried and true admirer of Jack White, I hadn't yet explored this project of his, so I snatched up a copy. I've been listening to it for four days straight.

The album has ten songs, and they're all gems. I've been struggling to decide just how to describe their sound, and I have a feeling I will fail. At times it sounds like one of the best records of 1969. The closing song, "Blue Veins," seems like a lost Led Zeppelin recording, with Robert Plant-like vocals. "Intimate Secretary" has a kind of bemused nature that sounds as if a bong were in the vicinity of the composer, while "Yellow Sun" recalls those days of hippies in leather vests holed up in the woods.

But the sound of the record also has more modern intonations, particularly in the title track, which I think is the strongest. The guitar work is especially good, and makes me recall how Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys had a fire going during a recording session to give his musicians the sense of hellfire. You can almost imagine the studio burning down to the ground as The Raconteurs perform this song.

All of the song have ridiculously pleasing hooks. The opener, "Steady, As She Goes," gets trapped in the head with only one listen, as does "Store Bought Bones," which has some pretty nifty percussion by Patrick Keeler and a Doors-like organ solo, and the ballad "Together," which is a gently melody but has the strongest lyric message: "You want everything to be just like the stories you read, but never write. You've got to learn to live and live and learn. You've got to learn to give and wait your turn, or you'll get burned." Otherwise the lyrics aren't especially trenchant, in fact they're downright homely. In "Steady, As She Goes," White sings, "Find yourself a girl and settle down, live a simple life, in a quiet town." This isn't exactly the rock and roll message. He sounds like someone's mother.

This album just reinforces my belief that there's no more exciting artist working in rock music today than Jack White. It's also comforting to know that rock and roll is still being made. It seems to be in short supply these days.