Music : Consolers of the Lonely

Rating: - Eclectic and Exciting
Broken Boy Soldier was good but this is in a different league.It progresses beautifully from the debut. Live , the songs on this are quite wondrous and if you ever see them live the idea that it's just Jack White with a backing band is blown out of the water. One of the best bands around.

And if there weren't enough reasons to adore JW , I doubt very much if I'd have discovered Brendan Benson, The Greenhornes and Blanche had it not been for The Raconteurs .

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Rating: - Great Album - Very Talented Band!
Some very clever songs on this album which show the inovative side to the Raconteurs!!

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Rating: - Once again another blast with hints of the past
I never usually get albums on their day of release; what I normally do is wait for reviews and then go out and buy the album but with Consolers of the Lonely this was not the case. I applaud the raconteurs for bypassing the music press and just letting the fans enjoy the music without some high almighty critic clouding their better judgement. This album is another belter from Jack and co. The album starts off with the hypnotic groove of the near title track Consoler of the Lonely topped off with White's trademark solo we have all come to love. Before you have time to digest the opening song Salute Your Solution bursts in with The Raconteurs heaviest rock songs to date with interlude of a psychedellic keys giving you a moments breather before storming back into gear. You Don't Understand Me is a piano driven number reminisant of the 1960's. Old Enough has a Celtic influence first seen on Icky Thump with Prickly Thorn but with Brenden there the song has more melody and flow. Switch and the Spur and Many Shades of Black are more Benson orientated featuring brass sections first used by White on Conquest, once again Switch and the Spur has this psychedellic riff with lyrics concerning riders hallucinating and souls who trespass against us will be stung dead on site. Hold Up is a most punk like track on the album, while Top Yourself is pure blues to the full and one of the stand out tracks of the album. Five on the Five reworked from the 2006 tour to give fuller sound and Attention illustrates the talent of Little Jack's bass playing which on this album has been harvested more from the debut album. Pull This Blanket is essetially the weakest track and These Stones will Shout does sound like a B side but I'm nitpicking. For me the highlight is the last track Carolina Drama, as this album starts off brilliantly it closes with a story of murder with Jacks narrative being somewhat reminisant of Nick Cave's style of writing. Its just a beutiful song about such a dark matter. Simply this album is a must have and cements Jack White's postion as the greatest musician of our generation.

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Rating: - Quite Unique
I found the white stripes interesting, but wasn't particularly mad about them. Haven't listened to much of the first Raconteurs album either, but I saw them on BBC2 Culture show a couple of months ago and was mesmerised - amazing musicians.
As most people point out - this is a varied album, and some are instantly brilliant (Many shades of black, Carlolina Story, The switch and the spur) and some take a while to grow on you( and personally I find White's voice a bit, well, irritating sometimes, whereas Benson has a much easier (and very good) classic rock voice), but it is a very, very good album indeed...

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Rating: - .
In my earlier review of the first Raconteurs album, I said that I couldn't pick an outstanding track because they were all equally good. That effort was a solid and concise album - 10 short songs, plenty of ideas, and essentially it was veering towards pop rock. It sounded very different to The Raconteurs that I first heard at Leeds Festival in 2006. That band was awesome - big sound, tight performance, audacious musicianship... and on this record the Raconteurs have come to represent on record what they do as a live band.

Consolers of the Lonely keeps a lot of the pop sensibilities that the earlier effort possessed (vocal harmonies, singalong choruses), but it is very much more rooted in traditional American rock n' roll... and by that I mean blues rock and country rock. It looks like Jack White's influence has been allowed to develop a little further, with songs like "You Don't Understand Me" and "Top Yourself" sounding very much like White Stripes songs - but with more instrumentation.

This is a solid album - tight, inventive, passionate - but unlike it's predecessors it does contain some standout tracks, and as a result that means there are also some weaker tracks. "Consoler of the Lonely" and "Salute Your Solution" start the record in a storming fashion, but I tend to find that a kind of lethargy sets in for a long while after that. Some inspired playing still crops up from time to time, but I could take or leave all the other tracks - with the exception of the last track, "Carolina Drama". That one stands out a mile. Awesome performance on Jack White's part. He delivers each line with passion, and creates a beautifully visual story, voicing the parts of several characters - the boy, the boyfriend, the mother, the little brother - in a way I first heard in Eminem's "Stan", and last heard in Ghostface Killah's "Maxine" (- I know!); it's a real goosebumps moment.

Elsewhere I find "Many Shades of Black" to be pompous and overblown, and definitely the weakest offering on the album. Also disappointingly, White's voice sounds off-key in "Five On The Five", a song that I have a much better recording of from the band's appearance at the Manchester Apollo.

So in summation, I think this record could have been trimmed down a little. I sure am thankful for the songs that standout, and must admit that the other tracks are worthwhile in general - whether it be for a certain horn part, a guitar solo, a drum fill or a vocal harmony - I just don't think it's one that I'll return to as often as I did to "Broken Boy Soldiers". I can't help thinking that the brilliance of "Consoler of the Lonely", "Salute Your Solution" and "Carolina Drama" only serve to make the other songs pale in comparison.

Best album of the year? I doubt it. Let's just say I'll be disappointed if I don't hear a better record this year.