Mar 23, 2018
In mid-December of last year Jack White teased an odd four minute montage of "Servings and Portions from My Boarding House Reach." Wild speculation began about a new album (I almost guessed the title) and early in January a double-single only added to the fire. Now, four years removed from Lazaretto, six from Blunderbuss, more than a decade from The White Stripes, Jack White, the wily king of threes, has returned with his third solo outing: Boarding House Reach.
Do you remember that scene in "Charlie & the Chocolate Factory" when Willy Wonka pilots a boat through a surreal hellscape? Regardless of how you feel about Boarding House Reach, it is this moment that Jack White fully lives into his image as the music industry's curious candy man. Our take: it is very good. Safe bet: it is very weird.
Early single "Connected By Love" echoes the borderline-jingle qualities 2016's Acoustic Collection album cut "Love is the Truth" revealed White to be capable of making, with a twist. Sure, there's a gnarly solo. Sure, White's writing perplexing lyrics (although other moments on the album go much more rogue than here), but "Connected By Love" sounds like what a Jack White song would sound like. B-Side and fellow album track "Respect Commander" goes rogue sonically. There's key changes, tempo-swaps, and a number of instruments you might not have expected from a White song. We're a long way from Fats Kaplin's theremin on the Lazaretto tour. Followed by the obtuse "Corporation" and the even more odd "Over and Over and Over" Boarding House Reach's singles all reveal some truth about claims White had made for throwing his usual process to the wind. White's new band of players make themselves heard.
So how does it all fit together? The singles definitely prepare listeners for a sea change in White's bag of tricks, although his vocal yawlps remain as does the screech his guitar has been known to make can be heard all over the album. "What's Done is Done" is an absolutely sublime closer, and "Everything You've Ever Learned" both echo the cleanliness of Blunderbuss' second half. Boarding House Reach also features a few spoken word tracks with synth and keyboard noodling playing off of the effected vocals that answer anyone wondering what a Jack White Animal Collective collaboration would sound like.
It is clear this will be a divisive album in White's catalogue. Boarding House Reach sounds like a '70s or '80s garage rock psych band with modern equipment, a bedroom hip-hop mixtape, the thumping techno of an after-hours warehouse, and the blues-rock anthems that could fill the largest arenas. All things considered, this is the first Detroit album Jack White has made as a solo artist. I'd say he'll lose fans over this one, but frankly, White's ethos as a public figure is so deeply rooted in not giving a shit and his tour is all but one or two venues at this moment sold out. Will "Seven Nation Army" be an olive branch to bring back once worshipful masses, or will White hit that sequencer, 808 machine, and rap his way through "Ice Station Zebra" to the overwhelming crowd of noisemakers unwilling to grow with an artist they claim to love so dearly?
The record is good in that it is fun to listen to. The record is great in that it defines explanation: you just have to listen to it and decide for yourself. For a long time weird and good couldn't be part of the same sentence, but unlike middle school bullies, music listeners can choose to rally around a strange but gratifying moment from music's most interesting act. White once kept a stiff upper lip to folks "grinnin in his face." The music is more brash, further from expectation; generous as always the maestro wants you to know that "we're connected by love."
Do yourself a favor: love him back.
Image: Jackwhiteiii.com