Blunderbuss: Jack White drifts in and out of classic rock revival

Jack White: artist or revivalist?

Jack White, the pale, floppy-haired guitar master behind the White Stripes, Raconteurs and Dead Weather, released a solo record a few weeks back called Blunderbuss. Like its name sake, the record sounds really cool but is still an expensive museum piece.

Often, White is really at his best here. He writes very good songs, has a cool and strange voice and,finally, he has a backing band that can play. There's a lot to like.

There are some really neat songs on Blunderbuss. "Freedom at 21," "Missing Pieces" and "Sixteen Saltines" at the album's starting point are all White Stripes-style blues rockers with more effort put into arrangement. The sound is a lot bigger, which I think is a good thing.

Then there are songs like "Weep Themselves to Sleep," a dramatic big-rock song with a lead piano that sounds like it might have been co-written by the guys in Queen. It's exceptionally cool.

Often, White sounds a lot like he's trapped somewhere between big-haired '70s rock and the that Detroit / Stooges-do-the-blues sound with which he made his name a decade ago. Listen to the last track, Take Me With You When You Go." It's an ambitious mix of those sounds, complete with a gospel choir that is mostly, I think a success.

Where Blunderbuss lags for me is some of the ballad -paced numbers that hew a little too close to that '70s light rock. As original as he can be, songs like "Blunderbuss" and the country-ish "Hypocritical Kiss," are hard to defend as works of original art.

And that's where my nagging feelings about White's worth as an artist begin to gnaw. Is he really that great? Or is he just a classic rock revivalist? In a lot of ways he's both. I'd like to hear him, once, throw out the standards book and follow his weirder musical instincts. I suspect he's capable of doing something genuinely brilliant.

In the end, Blunderbuss is a good rock record -- worlds better than the Dead Weather and definitely good enough to stand up to his White Stripes work. I'm just going to hope he does better next time.