Cigarette Tricks: What to Download Tuesday: Jack White

What can I say about Blunderbuss? Not much, actually, but that's not because there isn't a lot to say. If anything, Jack White's first solo LP promises to be the most written about, most dissected, most widely praised album of the year. And it's an album more than worthy of the attention. Not only does it have an epic rock 'n roll back story (i.e., "the coolest, weirdest, savviest rock star of our time" rebounds from the breakup of his generation defining band), but musically Blunderbuss is arguably as strong as anything White has done in nearly a decade. In his review for Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield calls Blunderbuss White's "most expansive and most masterful record since The White Stripes 2003 classic Elephant" while the Guardian's Alexis Petridis refers to it as "White at his most strange, contradictory, and unfathomable, and therefore at his best." Indeed, if you're already a fan of Jack's, then there is little doubt that you are going to love Blunderbuss. While I certainly wouldn't categorize it as the best record that he has ever worked on (that honor finds De Stijl and White Blood Cells in a tie), it is perhaps the most quintessentially "Jack White" Jack White album ever released. Similarly to what Wilco did on Wilco (The Album) or R.E.M. with Collapse Into Now, Blunderbuss might perhaps best be understood as a distillation of all of the various styles and genres that White has worked in or toyed with over the years into one defining statement, a kind of stylistic retrospective that one reviewer has surmised constitutes a "shaking up (of) his past (in order) to move forward into the future" (Michael Roffman, CoS). I'm not sure I buy the suggestion here that Blunderbuss serves as a transitional piece for White. Not only does the record seem like a fairly defined and sturdy moment all its own to me, but musically speaking Jack's future has always been rooted in the past; and on Blunderbuss it's simply his own past that takes precedence. The result is an album that, while perhaps scattered stylistically, seems about as confident and as comfortable a statement a first time solo artist could make. Of course, it helps when that first time solo artist is the coolest, weirdest, savviest rock star of our time.

As I suggested, there is much more to say about Blunderbuss. The brevity of my review is no reflection of the record itself or of my desire to say more about it. It is kind of a period of upheaval here at Cigarette Tricks. The postings have been a little thin the last few weeks, I know, and that is because there is some behind the scenes work that has been taking precedence. That should all change soon. In the meantime, be content with a great week in new releases, which in addition to Blunderbuss entails that Ty Segall & White Fence collaboration that we've been talking about, the self titled debut from the Deer Tick/Black Lips/Los Lobos "super group" Diamond Rugs, and the Waco Brothers collaboration with Nashville scenester Paul Burch, Great Chicago Fire.

Jack White, Blunderbuss