SMorg

Sit back and enoy one of the best albums I’ve heard in a LOOOONG time. Comprised of some very well known musicians (Jack White – White Stripes, Brendan Benson – a well known Chicago session player, Jack Lawrence, and Patrick Keeler from the Greenhornes).

The album is everything you would expect from professionals who love to play more than they love to breathe. From the opening track you can feel them pouring out every bit of 70s rock they took in as kids.
The first single, ‘Steady As She Goes’ is a thumping ode to giving in to suburban mediocrity punctuated by something White Stripes fans have never heard before: a bass line that walks us through some twangy guitar licks that accentuate Jacks falsetto as he advises us to ‘find yourself a girl, and settle down. Live a simple life, in a quiet town’. The bands harmony is great, and they sound like they’ve been playing together for years. They’re tight; very, very tight.

The album continues to surprise as it goes along, with ‘Hands’ throwing off a ‘The Bends’ guitar riff (at least to me). As it moves forward though, we see that the album is really intended to kick our butts with tributes to everyone from the Who, Frampton and Rundgren to, in the closing track ‘Blue Veins’, an amazing Zeppelin’esque romp that lasts a whopping 4:03, but that seems like a 20 minute B-side from 1975.

But, that leaves my favorite tracks in the cold…let me hit those real quick:

• ‘Intimate Secretary’ reminds me of, at times, the Kinks for some reason. It’s the longest song on the album at 4:03, and it has such a British vibe to it that you’ll swear you’re listening to some late 60s/early 70s’ McCartney stuff. With some peppy and clever rhyming wordplay, the song
• ‘Level’ has quickly become my favorite song on the album though. It has this very wicked dual guitar synth thig going on throughout the song, as well as some amazing harmonies in the chorus that escalate into what has to be 30 seconds of the bestproduction ever recorded. Excellent song.
• ‘Call it a day’ is a slower but scorching song with some of the best writing on the album:
  

  Can we call it a day, now would that be ok? Can we just go our own seperate ways? Cuz I’m cold and I’m wet, and I’m willing to bet that you constructed this maze…’.

  Good stuff, and again, it has a 70s british sound with the bland background harmonies that are somehow perfect.

I’m really looking forward to hearing much much more from these guys. I think we all knew jack had it in him to make great music…the WS were so good even as a two-piece band that there was simply no doubt that Jack would produce something spectacular given the time and freedom.

And with ‘Broken Boy Soldiers’, he has most definitely done it.


Buy it on iTunes