In the 34-minute artistic amalgam that is “Broken Boy Soldiers,” the debut release from the Raconteurs, this much is clear: this album is much more than a cut-rate White Stripes record.
Not that Jack White’s influence isn’t palpable. The hands that dreamt up the incomparable riff to “Seven Nation Army” make their presence felt in White’s side-project as well, but the proficiency of White’s playing is nothing if not augmented by the presence of a full backing band, consisting of the band’s co-founder, Brendan Benson (who Buckeyes might remember from 2005’s Big Free Concert) and a pair of exiles from the Cincinnati-based Greenhornes, bassist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler, hand-picked by White to round out the rest of the act.
Perhaps not surprisingly, White’s contributions are among the strongest tracks on the album, including the art-rock inspired title track, the slickly chorale “Store Bought Bones” and “Steady, As She Goes,” the record’s first single, whose infectious melody and superb pacing warrant the song’s already-frequent radio airplay (at the end of last week, the track held down the four-spot on Billboard’s modern rock chart). Fittingly, this track that marked the start of the Benson/White collaboration (Benson brought the tune to White back in 2004; White penned the lyrics) kicks off the album with its cool bass line and establishes the push toward inventiveness that the rest of the record seeks to sustain. As much as this is a Jack White release, though, Benson’s offerings are equally competent and catchy, and tracks such as “Hands” and “Intimate Secretary” play capable counterparts to White’s unhinged electric freak-outs, striking a solid stylistic balance between the two dynamic personas.
The finished product is an album that transitions seamlessly from song to song, cycling through a slew of genres on the way. The mellow, ballad-esque track “Together” sounds something like a plugged-in Jack Johnson tune, while “Blue Veins” recalls elements of a blues-rock aesthetic. Equally impressive are the band’s sharp if somewhat obtuse lyrics (this, for example, from “Intimate Secretary”: “Then on rubble of scummest malarchy/Down with luck we’ll see Ecclesiarchy”) that manage to succeed even as White and Benson preference simple rhyme schemes over more elegantly composed constructions.
As brilliant as “Broken Boy Soldiers” begins, however, the record loses steam as it nears its conclusion – a disappointing feat for such a comparatively short album. Tracks such as “Yellow Sun” and “Call It a Day” seem dull and plodding when succeeding the frenetic pace established in the early part of the record.
Still, the album’s emphasis on genre-hopping provides a place for these slower, somewhat folksy tracks and merits their inclusion.
The question now, it seems, is whether we’ll see more of this modest super-group. After a 10 date summer tour (which includes an Aug. 6 stop in Cleveland), it remains to be seen whether the members of the Raconteurs will stick around and issue an encore album or part ways and return to their separate acts. The band is currently writing songs for a second record, though, which bodes well for the act’s future. It would be a shame not to see what the Raconteurs could create after expanding upon this solid, if not spectacular, foundation.
