Jack White recording new album in NYC & LA; "Boarding House Reach" (03/23/2018)

Haven't they only released two?

 

More about the tunes here:

Jack White Releases Two New Songs, Talks 'Getting Into a Character's Head'

 

"Connected By Love" is pretty damn cool! More outright soul-ey than a lot of Jack's previous material. Loving those backup vocals, kinda reminds me of Dylan's gospel years with some electronic flourishes. I could see this being pretty epic live. Powerful video too!

 

You’re correct, typo.

 

According to Uncut magazine one of hear bands is the east coast band and the other is the west coast band. Hmmm.

 

I like the synth but other than that I am really disappointed. The chorus is boring and the vocal melody just does nothing for me. To me it sounds like this should've been a b-side too.

 

Sounds good to me. There's always good stuff on Jack White records.

Let's see how these tracks sound in the context of the lp.

 

connected by love is awesome!

 

First time a Jack new release dissapoints me. I hope better stuff to come on the new album.

 

New song:

 

For me, "Connected By Love" sort of harkens back to his piano rock on Get Behind Me Satan, except now we have heavy synths. I'm a big fan of Lazaretto, I just played it tonight after buying a ticket to his upcoming tour, but I don't necessarily need Lazaretto II.

I like "Respect Commander," too. Big 80s production flourishes before we get to one of his insane guitar workouts. There's a lot to unpack in this one.

"Corporation," well, I'll have to listen to it a few more times. It's different, anyway.

 

Really though, can we discuss how awful the album art is for this one?

 

Yeah, I'm not a fan either. This is the limited edition artwork, which I personally think is much better. Don't know why they didn't use this instead.

 

Quite a funky vibe to that track. He did say that it was a very eclectic album and it certainly sounds like it will be based on what we've heard so far. I quite like Corporation, but I think it may be a song that works better within the context of an album rather than heard on it's own. Hopefully the various styles of music can coexist nicely rather than making the album too much of a mishmash. It's certainly never dull being a Jack White fan!

 

Holds together ok until the last two minutes or so. Don’t dig the vocals, and the lyrics are inane. Good backing track, almost sounds like Jack’s been listening to some of that early 70s Invictus/Hot Wax HDH stuff.

 

New song now on Youtube. Sounds ok (not overly keen on the backing vocals, though), kinda sounds like Rage Against The Machine to me.

 

If these are the singles, how bad is this album going to be?

 

I think it's shaping up to be a real mish-mash of styles, and it certainly doesn't seem to be his strongest material based on what we've heard so far. I don't dislike the songs released so far, but it's definitely short of his best. Hopefully it all works in the context of the album, but I'm not so sure it will. I appreciate that he doesn't want to do the same stuff all the time but I do hope that whatever he follows this up with (whether solo or group) takes things back to basics.

 

Interesting. I like what I’m hearing so far. It reminds me of the most recent and excellent Taylor Hawkins EP in terms of sound and the visuals.

 

I bet this new one will be really good.

 

Yeah, I like this, he sounds unrestrained with his vocals; good theme, too, you can't go wrong with "love."

 

Hope you are right. I think it may be a love it or hate it album. In some ways it sounds like a logical progression from the previous couple of albums, but the eccentricities may be too much for some. I'll certainly give it a good few spins when it arrives and I am excited about finally getting to see him live in Toronto in June.

 

I'm listening to that "Connected by Love" song, and it's great.

 

I've heard Jackie White reference Teo Macero and how he used to stitch Miles Davis' albums together from various takes when describing this album; I don't know, I'm just not hearing it in the three songs released so far. If anything, these songs are pretty tight, concise, and repetitive.

He's also spoken a lot about how these songs were constructed out of these wild, lengthy jams that formed the basic tracks, and, I guess they were, but, again, it doesn't sound like it, to my ears. If they were, then Jack deserves a ton of credit as a producer here, because the songs don't have that sense about them at all. If anything, Lazaretto sounded more like what he describes this record as.

 

As much as "Connected by Love" has an overall digitized-aura (the Hammond organ solo is appreciated), it still has a feeling, to me, within the sound, that makes everything seem like it was created by humans and not machines. Certain parts of the music remind me of Taylor Swift's REP. I guess that's the new sound now: part modern hip-hop and part rock 'n' roll. People are getting good at making the machines sound real.

And even the Hammond organ solo morphs into a digitized Atari-sounding moment. So the song itself is kind of saying: this is where music is going. I don't mean "Atari" in a derogatory way btw. Great vocal, and the song sounds like a song, even though it's blended with that quality of being inside a video game. And by that I mean: not a violent video game. I'm thinking about toadstools, and Mario jumping - in a very good way.