The Same Boy You've Always Known
Jack White raises a rumpus.
Jack White - No Name
Filmmaker Martin Scorsese is widely credited with coining the “one for them, one for me” mentality— a way for artists to think about the tension between working for personal fulfillment versus pursuing commercial appeal.
Ever since The White Stripes disbanded, Jack White has seemed increasingly keen on making albums just for him— insular and esoteric records that studiously avoid the spark that made his run with Meg so irresistible. His onaistic impulses reached a nadir with 2018’s Boarding House Reach, an artsy sound collage that felt like a direct rebuke to the raw, nervy energy of White Blood Cells or Get Behind Me Satan.
No Name is the sixth solo album White has released, and it may be the first since 2012’s Blunderbuss that feels, from start to finish, like is was made for us. This is the sound of White back on his old shit, cranking out gnarled blues-punk riffs atop stomping Zeppelin-esque grooves. The more generous read on the album is that White is reconnecting with his strengths, while a more cynical take is that No Name is 43 minutes of pure fan service— but by the time he lets loose a rip-roaring slide guitar solo on the fourth track, most fans should have little objection to how thoroughly they’re being serviced.
The album also finds White reviving his long-dormant abilities to generate a sense of mystique surrounding his albums, not unlike the old “Meg is my sister” ruse. In the case of No Name, unmarked LPs were randomly slipped into the shopping bags of a few Third Man Records retail customers, creating an aura of anticipation around the album before it was formally announced or officially released. That faint air of mystery works in the album’s favor, giving it the feel of a reclusive legend emerging from the mist just to prove that his powers are undiminished.
What that means is a full album of crackling energy and unflagging momentum, seemingly designed as a perpetual dopamine generator for headbangers, old-school rock and roll fans, and anyone who’s found White’s post-Lazaretto albums too meandering. Not only does No Name strip away White’s artsier pretensions, it even steers away from his more ruminative side— it’s all “Fell in Love with a Girl,” no “We’re Going to Be Friends.”
White creates a veritable encyclopedia of riffs with such apparent ease, it’s almost infuriating that he doesn’t crank out an album like this every couple of years. No Name is stuffed to the brim with no-nonsense rock bravado: “Morning at Midnight” rides chugging blues riffs toward a chorus of pure, eruptive thrash, while “Number One with a Bullet” marries a frenzied new wave pulse with buzzsaw guitars. “That’s How I’m Feeling” mines that particular kind of bruised catharsis that White, bluesman-cum-garage-rocker, has always excelled at. Meanwhile, “Bombing Out” is one of his most appealingly scuzzy blasts of breakneck punk.
You could call it perfunctory, the way White dutifully checks all the boxes of what his old-head fans want from him— and it’s true that the album’s laser focus on ragged riffs leaves no room for the kinds of oddball country and textured experiments that gave the classic White Stripes run such depth and character. Yet these songs are delivered with such showmanship and zeal that the album’s sense of discipline feels like a flex, not a limitation. It’s simply very hard to imagine any serious objection to the way White pummels and howls through a song called “Missionary,” especially when there are a dozen more songs that sound just as muscular and vital.
For an example of how White keeps his old tricks from sounding the least bit rote, through sheer force of his panache, give a listen to “Archbishop Harold Holmes.” Over a whiplash groove, White raves, barks, references the Bible, and tosses off beguiling come-ons, equal parts traveling salesman and itinerant preacher. It’s the best piece of musical theater he’s written since “Rag and Bone” from the final White Stripes album, and immediately one of his classics.
That song also hints at some of the album’s underlying lyrical concerns, distrustful of institutions and disdainful of modernity. In “Bless Yourself,” White eschews formalized religion in favor of self-actualized spirituality. Meanwhile, “What’s the Rumpus?” bemoans the age of “alternative facts,” lamenting how austere truth has been replaced with unmoored opinion.
Such sentiments are, by now, de rigueur for White, who seemed like an old soul even when he was in his 20s, and has since adopted an increasingly curmudgeonly posture. But context is everything, and if his crankiness sometimes wore thin on lesser albums, it simply adds a splash of tart flavoring to No Name— an album that sounds energized and engaged as opposed to shrugging or aloof. It results in an album that may as well be synonymous with “return to form”— and happens to be a great deal of fun, too.
My rating: 7.5 out of 10.
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