Jack White's recent solo albums have been wildly erratic, as if he were trying too hard to find an identity outside the long-gone White Stripes, his powerhouse Detroit duo with drummer and then-wife Meg White.
One of Jack White's side projects, the Raconteurs, made a couple of quick albums just as the White Stripes were dissolving, circa 2006-08, and then went silent. "Help Us Stranger" (Third Man Records) marks the Raconteurs' return after a decade, and White folds his outsized personality into a dozen songs in a way that suggests he feels most at home in the context of a band, especially one as strong as this.
The guitarist shares the songwriting load with Brendan Benson, and though they are often typecast as opposites � White as the bluesy gun-slinger, Benson as the power-pop craftsman � they blend their approaches seamlessly on a bunch of songs. There's Benson shouting atop the ripping guitars on "Live a Lie," while White sounds hopeful and tender on the piano-ballad "Shine the Light on Me."
The latter is indicative of the subtle twists in the best of these songs: the Queen-like vocal harmonies at the outset, the psychedelic swirl that brings it to a close. "Bored and Razed," with White and Benson swapping vocal parts and contrasting power chords and acoustic passages.
Only "Don't Bother Me" gets carried away, reminiscent of the overly gimmicky tracks on White's solo albums with its frantic pacing, scrambled three-part arrangement shoehorned into three minutes and outraged lyrics: "All your clicking and swiping, all your groping and griping."
The rhythm section � bassist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler � plays a crucial role, particularly in the reverberating line that Lawrence threads through "Now That You're Gone" and the rippling groove that Keeler brings to a fierce cover of a Donovan B-side, "Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness)."
"Help Us Stranger" brims with unapologetic rock songs that mine '60s and '70s signifiers without getting stuck there. Yet it's the ballads that give the album its unexpected emotional heft, particularly "Somedays (I Don't Feel Like Trying)," which back in the days of free-form FM rock radio would've sounding great coming out of the sweeping melancholy of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Tuesday's Gone." And the acoustic "Thoughts and Prayers" becomes an unlikely hymn to a graying planet.
