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The Raconteurs
Consolers of the Lonely
XL Recordings
Article
written by Ged M
Apr 16, 2008.
The Raconteurs rush-released their album on 25 March, sending out no review copies, so that fans would hear it at the same time as critics (with a simultaneous release on CD and vinyl). Some wondered if they were concerned about critical reaction but to me it seems to be the artist removing one more barrier between music and fan. It upsets the NME, of course, whose retrospective track listing is therefore redundant, but that just underlines the redundancy of that rag.
So doubtless you’ve made up your own minds by now but the response from this critic/fan is very positive. Where Broken Boy Soldiers was the sound of a band off the leash but heading off towards Big Rock Guitar town to indulge their Led Zeppelin fantasies, this is a far more measured package. If it feels quite White Stripesy on first listen, that’s because Jack White is such a big presence on the record, but a few spins of the disc allow you to recognise the poppier influence of Brendan Benson. Repeated plays also reveal a depth and diversity that ranges from classic rock (their cover of Terry Reid’s ‘Rich Kid Blues’) to Motown soul (the 60s RnB of ‘Many Shades of Black’) to fierce garage punk of ‘Five On The Five’ and they even go all Fairport-Convention-in-Middle-Earth on the fantasy-folk ‘Hold Up’. The standouts are the powerpop tunes: the punchy ‘Salute Your Solution’ and the piano-based melodies of ‘You Don’t Understand Me’. Above all there’s a fierce fire blazing in the band that makes it anything but a side project (as Broken Boy Soldiers sometimes felt) and ensures Consolers of the Lonely is a must-hear.
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