Help Us Stranger might not break new ground for the Raconteurs, but you’ll still be glad the gang are back together after 11 years.
It’s only half-surprising that the Raconteurs decided to reunite and release their third album, Help Us Stranger. On one hand, a decade of silence followed after they released two albums in 2006 and 2008, so it was natural to conclude the group had permanently disbanded. On the other hand, their frontman and most famous member Jack White has a well-known thing for the number three. His record label? Third Man Records. How many White Stripes albums are there? Six, or three times two. His side project the Dead Weather has three albums out, and he’s also released three solo albums. For you gaming nerds out there, he’s like the anti-Valve. Had the Raconteurs remained a two-album act, they really would have stood out within White’s musical ventures.
Help Us Stranger does stand out musically from everything else White himself has done in the past ten years; its pop leanings and its rich rock and folk sounds could only have come from its collaborative nature. After last year’s overly experimental solo album Boarding House Reach, it’s good to hear White back in his rocking-out, guitar-shredding element. However, it’s less groundbreaking as a Raconteurs release, to the point that it feels like that decade-long gap between their albums never happened.
Just to jog your memory, the Raconteurs’ first two albums stood out at the time of their release because they showcased what Jack White would sound like with a full backing band. Until this point, he had only released music with the notably-minimalist duo the White Stripes. Now, the Raconteurs combined the talents of White, Patrick Keeler and Jack Lawrence of the Greenhornes, and singer-songwriter Brendan Benson. Their first album Broken Boy Soldiers experimented with psychedelic garage rock jams, before they expanded their sound by adding piano, fiddle, horns, and banjo on the Americana-tinged Consolers of the Lonely. In the span of just two albums, the Raconteurs proved their dexterity with both fast-paced rock and slower, country-influenced songs.
Help Us Stranger goes between fast-paced rock and slower, country-influenced songs. If you’ve heard Consolers of the Lonely, there are very few surprises in store here. For an album eleven years in the making, Help Us Stranger could have been called “The Raconteurs: Outtakes 2007-08” and no one would be the wiser.
That said, Consolers of the Lonely was an excellent album, and much of Help Us Stranger meets its predecessors’ high standards. The opening track “Bored and Razed” really kicks things off on a high note, with snappy drumming and lead guitar lines that build to a hook-laden chorus. It’s effective both as a pop song and a garage rocker, and is one of the Raconteurs’ best tracks yet. “Sunday Driver” and “Live a Lie” are both brimming with power chords, and their rocking-out simplicity fills the same role as “Salute Your Solution” and “Five on the Five” on Consolers of the Lonely. As far as country songs go, there’s fewer frills on Help Us Stranger, and only the quiet closing track “Thoughts and Prayers” brings back the fiddle and twangy guitars. However, “Only Child” is slow and folky in the same vein as “You Don’t Understand Me” from their last album, and “Shine the Light on Me” has the same old timey piano effect as “The Switch and the Spur.” Otherwise, there’s a greater blend of old and new, like on “Help Me Stranger” where acoustic strumming is complemented by a very psychedelic-styled electric guitar. These tracks might not contain fresh sounds for the band, but that doesn’t mean they are lower quality.
The main way Help Us Stranger surpasses anything the Raconteurs have done before is a noticeable increase in song complexity. For instance, you might not be into the refrain of “don’t bother me bother me” on “Don’t Bother Me,” but its mid-track tempo shift coupled with an extensive guitar solo at the end make it a standout. “Somedays (I Don’t Feel Like Trying)” starts as a hard rock ballad, but its coda dials things down with a steadily-building chant of “I’m here right now, I’m not dead yet,” making the whole thing a dead ringer for 70s rock a la Lynyrd Skynyrd. The penultimate track “What’s Your Is Mine” is more modern-sounding, and features a false stop halfway through as the band sounds like they’re “powering down” before kicking back up again. If Benson is responsible for the Raconteurs’ poppier inclinations, then these songs benefit from White’s eccentricities.
The Raconteurs cut some corners on Help Us Stranger though, and despite the album’s musical complexity, it’s easy to notice its general lack of lyrical depth. Granted, the Raconteurs have never really been that profound, and Broken Boy Soldiers in particular had some lyrics that sounded ad-libbed (see: “I’ve got a rabbit it likes to hop/I’ve got a girl and she likes to shop”). However, Consolers of the Lonely closed with the epic “Carolina Drama,” a Bob Dylan-esque ballad with a dramatic, self-contained story. It’s unlike anything else White has written, and unfortunately, there’s nothing like it on Help Us Stranger. With lyrics on the back burner, you get instead get nonsensical lines like “rolling a juke joint box in the corner” (“Bored and Razed”) and “it ain’t right, it ain’t wrong/it’s a fact, sing my song” (“Sunday Driver”) that show the band’s primary focus was jamming out and picking whatever word combinations work. Even the provocatively titled “Thoughts and Prayers” is more introspective than political, and the denunciations of a handsy, tech-addicted narcissist on “Don’t Bother Me” contain as many potential references to rocker Ryan Adams as they do Trump.
Although Help Us Stranger might not be the most pioneering, or even the best, Raconteurs release, it still does feel like a breath of fresh air. As Benson explained in an interview, the rock landscape now is noticeably different than it was when the Raconteurs started in the 2000s. With Help Us Stranger, the band sought to make an album that would stand out from others – or in his words, be “the thing we’re not hearing.” True to this objective, it’s hard to think of any other bands right now who so seamlessly blend classic Americana with garage rock, and the unique talents of the Raconteurs’ members ensure that this act can’t be replicated. The album itself might seem overly familiar, but Help Us Stranger still merits an enthusiastic “welcome back” to the band.
You must be logged in to post a comment.