Blunderbuss

Jack White has been a major player on the music scene for years now, as a musician and creative genius behind The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather, and as a producer for Loretta Lynn and Wanda Jackson, among others, but Blunderbuss is his first solo album. As such, it is perfectly acceptable, but a little bit of a let-down.

Most of the record is a pastiche of old shit-kicking blues, especially in the early cuts: "Missing Pieces," "Sixteen Saltines," "Freedom at 21," and "Love Interruption." The music is pared down and reminiscent of honky-tonks and the bayou, and certainly influenced by the place it was recorded, Nashville.

This sound reaches its zenith in White's cover of a Rudy Toombs song, "I'm Shakin'," which has a killer guitar lick and makes best use of White's unusual, yowling vocal style. When he says "I'm nervous," it comes out, "I'm noivus."

The album doesn't hit the heights of greatness though, until the last few cuts. It's as if White put aside his love of old-time music and got down to business. There really isn't a White "sound"--he's really a dabbler--but the ethereally beautiful "On and On and On" and then the mini-epic "Take Me With You When You Go," which has a Beatlesque quality, comes closest to defining what White can do. The title track is also quite lovely.

Lyrically, the album drips with venom. It's no coincidence that a vulture perches on White's shoulder on the cover, but these songs are about love gone wrong. Most pointedly, listen to the verses of "Love Interruption." I'll just start with the first and mildest: "I want love to roll me over slowly and stick a knife inside me and twist it all around." This album is ideal for listening to in the dark, post-breakup.