Jack White, No Name
The surprise untitled release finds the White Stripes rocker refreshed
Jack White—No Name (2024)
Call it a gimmick if you must but Jack White's decision to sneak his sixth solo album into Third Man Records shops as an unlabeled, untitled LP is a smart bit of showmanship. Without the sly bit of subterfuge, it's possible this nifty little record would fly under the radar.
Not that White's career is anywhere close to moribund. Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive, his twin 2022 albums, both debuted in the Billboard Top Ten and his appearance on Saturday Night Live in February 2023 served as evidence of his live mastery. The performance, following on the heels of his acclaimed last-minute substitution for Morgan Wallen in 2020, marked White's fifth time on the show, placing him in a rarified space that also includes Foo Fighters, Rihanna and the late Tom Petty.
Despite his sustained stardom, there's a nagging sense that White's status as top-tier rocker is diminished. Some of the blame surely belongs to the slow sunset of blues-based rock. Once at the center of the mainstream—even the sleaze emanating from the Sunset strip were the bastard sons of the blues—blues-rock hovers at the fringes of popular culture. As the driving force of the White Stripes, White helped usher in the last great gasp of both blues-rock in the early years of the 21st Century, popularizing garage grime while also giving it an artful dimension. The old chord changes disguised how the White Stripes were, at their core, as much an art-rock group as a garage band, discovering inventive solutions to the creative limitations White imposed on the duo.
Once he severed ties with Meg White—fame exhausted her—he eagerly played the field, supporting his 2012 solo debut Blunderbuss with a tour featuring two entirely different backing bands; one consisted of entirely female musicians, the other comprised of male instrumentalists. These wanderings started to drift into the albums starting with Lazaretto, the 2014 album where he deftly balanced his experimental and traditional sides. Boarding House Reach is where things started to go a bit pear shaped, careening from stiff funk, sci-fi adventure and arena rock shredding. The 2022 albums found him trimming his excesses but the very nature of their paired release diluted their impact; two records require a lot of attention from the listener.
In contrast, No Name demands very little from a listener. Gnarled, noisy and visceral, it doesn't ask for close listening, nor does its release suggest that parsing out individual songs is even necessary: not only was the album introduced sans title, none of the songs are given names. The lack of specifics helps focus on the pure rush of sound, which may be why No Name has been greeted in some quarters as a return to the roar of the White Stripes: what's placed in the forefront is the sonics, not the songs. After that initial listen, it becomes easier to discern discrete songs—how the second cut seems as furious as "Black Math," how the third song is underpinned by a New Wave groove, how the ninth track has a backwoods lilt to its swing—and it also become clear that this isn't nearly as feral as the White Stripes. Most of that is due to the absence of Meg White, who gave the Stripes a sense of real risk. No Name, like all White solo affairs, is more precise in its punch. This time, that precision carries over the form of the record itself. Where White couldn't resist detours on his previous solo albums, he stays on a clear path throughout No Name. He keeps the songs punchy, makes sure the record doesn't clock in much past 40 minutes, and, tellingly, he never attempts to veer into new territory; he channels any of his wanderlust into giving these rockers vivid arrangements.
This clear focus helps accentuate the riffs and roars that flow through No Name, making it seem tighter and fresher than any recent Jack White record. It's a neat trick that may not have had the impact if it had the splashy PR rollout of Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive: a record this modest is best heard without expectations. Maybe that's White was attempting to replicate by giving No Name away at his Third Man Records stores (and at this link): he wanted to make it seem like an unearthed gem, not an event.