Lazaretto

Oh, Jack White. You may be feud-happy, and you don't sound like a lot of fun at a barbecue, but damn you make good records. The latest is Lazaretto, and I haven't been able to get enough of it this past week.

Once again, White's music is rooted in Americana, with several touches of Appalachia and twelve-bar blues. But he manages to make it sound contemporary, with sterling arrangements and powerful vocals.

To set the tone, he kicks things off with a reworking of a Blind Willie McTell song, "Three Women."

"I got one in California
And one back in Detroit
But my woman in Nashville
Cashes the bottle with her daddy all night."

We then go the more modern and experimental title tune, which is all over the map, sonically speaking, only to go back to the hills for "Temporary Ground," a gorgeous tune accompanied Lillie Mae Rische on fiddle and backing vocals.

There isn't a bad song on this album, but some more of the highlights are a rousing instrumental, "High Ball Stepper," and a comic song of lost love, "Just One Drink":

"You drink water
I drink gasoline
One of us is happy
One of us is mean
Well I love you but
Baby why don't you love me?"

But I think my favorite track is the raucous "That Black Bat Licorice," which is kind of the whole enterprise in one song, the best of White's zany enthusiasm for old style music but dressed up in the duds of today. It also includes the words hypocaust, avuncular, histrionic, and rhymes Columbo and Dumbo.

I've said it before, I'll say in again, White is the most interesting rock musician working today, and Lazaretto finds him on top of his game. Unfortunately, he's not touring anywhere near me this time around. I have yet to see him live and I imagine that would be quite an experience.