If you’ve read any of the other posts I’ve made about Jack White, the 5 Word Review at the end of this post should be no surprise. It’s a sentence I’ve used before and will continue to use again until White releases bad music, which I believe to be a scientific impossibility.

Yesterday marked the release of Jack White’s first solo album, though it’s in no way a first introduction to the man who created The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather. Not to mention creating Third Man Records, releasing a 3RPM vinyl pressing, sending records into the air inside balloons, scoring Disney’s Lone Ranger, and creating a guitar out of a piece of wood and a Coke bottle (seriously, watch It Might Get Loud.)

To me, The White Stripes will always be a band I hold on a pedestal. Jack White’s other efforts have been good, even great, but always influenced by other musicians, other sounds — they were just different. It always felt like his heart lied in the White Stripes. In Josh Eells’ wonderful NY Times article, White states:

“I’d make a White Stripes record right now. I’d be in the White Stripes for the rest of my life. That band is the most challenging, important, fulfilling thing ever to happen to me. I wish it was still here. It’s something I really, really miss.”

Blunderbuss  is the closest White release to the White Stripes. It’s a record filled with heavy themes of death and disillusionment, sure, but it still maintains his energy and his heart. It, like The White Stripes, is just Jack at his finest.

5 Word Review of Jack White’s Blunderbuss: Jack White is a god.

“Missing Pieces”