In March of 2008, The Raconteurs surprisingly dropped their sophomore album Consolers of The Lonely, and it was the best rock album of the decade. Over eleven years later comes the follow up titled Help Us Stranger, and while it doesn’t reach its predecessor’s lofty heights, it is an engaging mix of classic rock power and modern-day styling.
Songwriters Jack White and Brendan Benson receive most of the headlines yet this is truly a collective with the low end of Patrick Keller and Jack Lawrence keeping the engine of this proudly Detroit muscle car humming. The groove is the main attraction throughout the record, claiming the spotlight on the first two songs as “Bored and Razed” kicks like a mule, closing with an exhilarating finish before “Help Me Stranger” starts acoustic then layers sounds distorted guitars harmonies and percussion to keep heads bobbing and asses shaking.
As on those dynamite openers, The Raconteurs work best when White and Benson’s styles intertwine and the listener cannot tell which track is more Jack or Brendan (more examples “Salute Your Solution”, “Intimate Secretary”) but this time out there seems to be more separation between writers. “Only Child” is a Benson tune through and through and “Don’t Bother Me” plays like an outtake from White’s recent Boarding House Reach. The first two singles “Sunday Driver” and “Now that You’re Gone” winningly manage to warp the songwriters’ styles, playing to the band’s strengths of electric laser riffs and “woo” ready arena rock crescendos.
The group displays clear classic influences on The Beatles-like “Shine The Light On Me” and the “She’s So Heavy” meets Lynyrd Skynyrd of “Somedays (I Don’t Feel Like Trying)”. The hometown Stooges also play a direct role in the groups pummeling punkish workout “Live a Lie” before the boys go full-on metallic blues hoe-down for their cover of Donovan’s “Hey Gyp (Dig The Slowness)”.
The music is textured and production exquisite as layers of sounds and instrumentation ring clear, but if there is a weakness it is that lyrically the album is lacking. White and Benson both come off as blasé at times not offering much in the way of memorable lines, disengaging while moving towards generalities.
White is done with the modern day left and right saving his politics for 1862 Civil War blue gear on the lush string filled closer “Thoughts And Prayers” while Benson rhymes twice with twice and nice. Past tracks like “Old Enough” proved thought-provoking and the burning “Blue Veins” psychotically passionate; here the lyrics are just a means towards more rocking and that killer rhythmic push.
Those traits abound on Help Us Stranger as the record brings back the direct guitar rock of generations past and manages to make it sound fresh and alive even as the band keeps searching for the right words to say. Here’s hoping they find more of them before another eleven years pass by.
