\u201cRaconteur.\u201d\u00a0 Noun.\u00a0 A person skilled at telling stories or anecdotes.<\/p>\n
But The Raconteurs ask:\u00a0 why simply tell a story when you can slap a guitar here, some horns there, and a little banjo and fiddle over yonder — and then sell a few hundred thousand records?<\/p>\n
Consolers Of The Lonely<\/i> nabbed the spotlight unexpectedly in May 2008 when its release was made public only one week before hitting shelves.\u00a0 The Nashville-based supergroup\u2019s debut album from \u201806, Broken Boy Soldiers<\/i>, hinted at greatness, but with only ten tracks that scarcely outlasted a half hour, they left you desperately wanting more.\u00a0 Brendan Benson, Jack White, Jack Lawrence, and Patrick Keeler delivered:\u00a0 Consolers<\/i> shattered even the highest expectations established by its predecessor.<\/p>\n
All four members continuously brandish their talents throughout the entire album, experimenting with widely varied and thickly textured instrumentation. It\u2019scertainly a 180 from White\u2019s previous works with The White Stripes, which favored minimalism.<\/p>\n
Benson and White tag-team vocal duties throughout the album.\u00a0 It\u2019s an interesting contrast:\u00a0 Benson\u2019s refined voice of pop music origin against White\u2019s raw, \u201ccontrolled-chaos\u201d singing\/yelling. The opener, \u201cConsoler Of The Lonely\u201d, exemplifies this, as the contrast between the two singing styles is accented by sharp changes in tempo.<\/p>\n
The next three tracks just might be the best back-to-back-to-back I\u2019ve ever heard.\u00a0 The album\u2019s single \u201cSalute Your Solution\u201d is straight-up rock reminiscent of Zeppelin; \u201cYou Don\u2019t Understand Me\u201d has an undeniable beauty about it, between expressive piano riffs and meaningful lyrics (\u201cYou don\u2019t understand me \/ But if the feeling was right \/ You might comprehend me\u201d); and \u201cOld Enough\u201d somehow manages to legitimately mesh a fiddle with pop-style hooks.<\/p>\n
Nowhere do the Raconteurs fulfill their roles as storytellers more clearly than in the \u201cThe Switch And The Spur,\u201d a farcical track that vividly reminds you of the stereotypical Old West, peppered with mysterious lyrics and blaring trumpets — in one brief moment mimicking a horse\u2019s neigh, if you listen closely.\u00a0 And just when you\u2019re ready for a breather, the album manages to test your limits even further with the unbridled \u201cHold Up\u201d and \u201cFive On The Five.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Consolers<\/i> has a weak spot at all, it lies in the back-to-back tracks \u201cAttention\u201d and the offbeat \u201cPull This Blanket Off.\u201d\u00a0 Given the nine-track marathon that opened the album, maybe it\u2019s not all bad to regain your composure a little, much like the fake ending at a concert before the blistering encore.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarolina Drama,\u201d sort of a hard-edged Dylan-esque closer, is yet ANOTHER somewhat outrageous story about the attempted murder of a priest, stopped at the last moment when the priest\u2019s son smashes a bottle of milk on the forehead of the would-be killer.\u00a0 It may be completely unbelievable, but White convinces you beyond a doubt that it actually happened.<\/p>\n
ConsolersOf The Lonely<\/i> is a rare gem that demands your attention (and awe) for its entirety.\u00a0 It\u2019s only after your CD player loops back to Track 1 that you realize you feel exactly like you did after Broken Boy Soldiers<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Wanting more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":30483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7748],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-42148","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-raconteurs","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42148"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42148"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}