In 2006, the Raconteurs (the pairing of Brendan Benson’s cheery pop sensibilities with Jack White’s rock and roll decadence), released their first album, Broken Boy Soldiers. It was a fun debut, more or less what one would have anticipated: infectious pop with a strong edge and driving rock with pop accessibility. The critical response was okay — but the Raconteurs had been given the unfortunate “supergroup” misnomer, which no doubt led to lofty expectations.

Perhaps in an effort against a critical repeat, this year the Raconteurs released their followup, Consolers of the Lonely, at the drop of a press release. No one had any idea it was coming. No advances were sent out to the media, no interviews given, no news items published. A mere week separated the announcement of the record’s existence and its arrival. The band did this, they said, because they wanted people to listen to it without any pre-conceived notions.

Had they done anything wildly different, this publicity stunt disguised as a publicity shun might have made more sense. In this case, it probably didn’t change much. Aesthetically, there’s little difference between Consolers of the Lonely and its predecessor. The biggest change is in time. Where Broken Boy Soldiers was just over half an hour long, Consolers of the Lonely is about 20 minutes longer. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work to the band’s advantage. They crammed those minutes with extraneous rock revival anthems, the type that Jack White’s other band — the White Stripes, dare it need to be said — is already so good at. This includes some of the strongest tracks: the brash but brilliant opening title track and “Top Yourself” which, with its showoff guitar and slyly sexual lyrics, sounds reminiscent of “Ball and a Biscuit” from the White Stripes’ Elephant. But some of the weaker tracks (”Attention,” “Hold Up”) fall in this category as well, and they drag the album down. (more…)