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Jack White: Blunderbuss

Third Man/Columbia

Whatever twisted forces are hounding Jack White to write lines like “I want love to murder my own mother and take her off to somewhere like Hell or up above,” the harsh truth is that we need more of them. “Love Interruption” is just one of several moments on Blunderbuss, White’s first solo album since the demise of The White Stripes, that reduces rock and roll to what it’s supposed to be: an angry, rebellious exercise in largely narcissistic self-expression. That’s not to say that he can’t have fun with it. “I’m Shakin’” is campy surf-garage ear candy, “Trash Tongue Talker” is lost Mick Jagger blues and “Sixteen Saltines” is as close to a simpleminded White Stripes riff as he’s probably going to get from now on. But with a dizzyingly talented group of session players—most of them women—behind him (including New Orleans-born keyboardist Brooke Waggoner and Autolux drummer Carla Azar), White is making music that’s strange, beautiful and devastating.