Jack White – No Name

Blues Rock | Garage Rock

84%

 

We’re nostalgic creatures, prone to look back on the past with rose tinted glasses. Just about every facet of pop culture gets remembered fondly with the benefit of time – hence why we’re inundated with remakes, reboots, and references to TV and movies we grew up on. Everything comes back around eventually. Whether driven by elder millennials reflecting fondly on a soundtrack they grew up on, or Gen Z’s wistful longing for a simpler time that they just missed out on, or some combination thereof, it feels like the most recent swell in nostalgia these days is for 00s indie and alternative. I can see why, and I’m certainly not immune to the lure of it; there was such a high concentration of new and exciting acts emerging around that time, and most of those early trend-setting records still hold up. The flame has been burning brightly as of late. LCD Soundsystem, Bloc Party and The National were the most lauded sets of this year’s Glastonbury, Paramore are having their own little renaissance playing with Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish, and records like Is This It? and Whatever People Say I Am… feel more like hallowed, untouchable classics with every passing year.  

Curiously, I feel like The White Stripes haven’t received the level of buzz that they’re owed in this recent revival. Just a short while ago they were a no-brainer answer for best bands of the noughties. The raw, raucous lovechild of blues and punk, tracks able to get you pumped up with little more than the bare essentials. They had an unimpeachable run of good-to-great records, an iconic eye-grabbing aesthetic, an endearing air of eccentricity, and the strongest repertoire of riffs of anyone in that era. It’s all there. Yet while ‘Seven Nation Army’ still plays at every sporting event on planet Earth, the band as a whole still seem underrated these days.

Part of the problem may be down to the trajectory of Jack White’s solo career, which has doubled down time and again on the more eccentric aspects of his sound and persona, overshadowing what came before. At this point he’s well established as a mad scientist, the Willy Wonka of music. Wailing guitar that sounds like a robot programmed to feel pain, screaming in binary, interspersed with theremin solos and hip hop breakdowns. Projects recorded in a phone booth onto vinyl that plays backwards. The very nature of experimentation requires that some some ideas work (Lazaretto) while others don’t (Boarding House Reach). But in recent years Jack’s work has often felt like it was striving to be weird just for weird’s sake, with the final product playing second fiddle to its own convoluted birth. For those that have been following his career for some time, there is a clear path he took to get to this point, but for a new generation discovering him for the first time, all the outlandish overblown theatrics are a world apart from where he started. It must be hard to look past all the sonic contraptions and Tesla coils to envision the lo-fi garage rock where it all began. 

No Name – which started life as an anonymous album given away for free at his record store chain, before finding its way to streaming – feels like a forgotten Stripes record. No frills, no gimmicks, no experiments gone awry, just an unrelenting barrage of blistering blues rock. In short, this album fucking rips! I’d forgotten just how hard Jack kicks ass when the impulse takes him. The record snarls to life with ‘Old Scratch Blues’, its lead riff and bombastic drum work channelling Led Zep. The proggy drum and organ breakdown, leading into a brief yet brilliant snaking guitar solo, being the closest the album ever gets to extravagance. The no nonsense garage rock of ‘That’s How I’m Feeling’ reminds me of The Hives, closing track ‘Terminal Archenemy Ending’ imposes a sense of impending doom with its slow-burning menace, while the muddy lo-fi punk of ‘Bombing Out’ bubbles away in the verses before leaping straight for the jugular in the chorus.

‘Underground’ and ‘It’s Rough On Rats (If You’re Asking)’ both bring out a more light and playful slice of the blues, with the latter’s wild wailing solo kept grounded by rock solid drum work. Album highlight ‘Archbishop Harold Holmes’ sees White unleashed, letting rip a unhinged sermon worthy of a revival preacher one cry of “Hallelujah!” away from speaking in tongues. The one-two punch of ‘What’s The Rumpus?’ and ‘Tonight (Was A Long Time Ago)’ meanwhile act as a stellar reminder of just what a top-drawer riff machine the man truly is. The former swaggers around with heavy ‘Steady As She Goes’ energy while still carving its own path, and the latter gives AC/DC a run for their money, and leads perfectly into one of White’s best solos to boot. 

This is not an album that delivers much in the way of surprises or variety, nor do its highlights hit quite the same peak as tracks like ‘Sixteen Saltines’ or ‘Lazaretto’, let alone the Stripes’ classics. But where No Name really delivers, perhaps more than any project in his vast catalogue, is consistency. He set his sights on making an all-killer-no-filler garage rock record, and not only handily delivers, but in the process reaffirms his credentials as one of the best to ever do it. Perhaps it just goes to show that when you’ve tried everything else, the most daring and ground-breaking thing left is to go back to basics. People, myself include, have not been giving Jack White his dues as of late; this is the record that changes that.