‘Welcome to the Garden of Eden’.
So begins G.O.D And The Broken Ribs, the opening salvo from Jack White’s latest album Frozen Charlotte (or Frozen Charlatan depending on who you trust), his first since 2024’s critically acclaimed No Name. A blistering celebration of blues infused garage rock, No Name was hailed by fans and critics alike as a true return to the kind of raw, high energy guitar rock that defined much of his earlier work with the White Stripes, and ended the year gracing countless best-of lists.
White has always had a penchant for experimenting with sound, often to dazzling effect. From the stripped back minimalism and bare bones line up of earlier White Stripes recordings to his preference for vintage recording equipment, obscure guitar tuning and deliberately self imposed constraints, the search for new and unique sounds has been a constant in his music. It is this kind of creative restlessness and curiosity that has given us such diverse recordings as the wild and sonically experimental Fear of the Dawn as well as the more intimate and restrained, folk-driven acoustic warmth of its companion record Entering Heaven Alive. Not everything has always worked, but White’s playfulness and his embracing of the ‘perfect imperfection’ that comes as an inevitable byproduct of true artistry has been a persistent feature of his creative method his entire career.
Frozen Charlotte takes the sound and frenetic energy of No Name and distills it even further into a purer, more raw form of heavy blues inspired rock. First impressions suggest that this will be a more difficult album to wrap one’s ears around. The songs initially feel less catchy. The lyrical punk poetry takes a back seat (there’s certainly nothing to rival Archbishop Harold Holmes here), replaced with a far more constrained style of songwriting that favours repeated phrases, both lyrically and musically. The consequence is that there are fewer immediately standout tracks; but on the plus side, Frozen Charlotte instead presents us with a far more cohesive and laser focused album, one that feels more consistent in tone and style across its run time.
This is a guitar album for sure, one filled with instant hooks, chugging riffs and wildly erratic solos. The songs themselves serve only as the foundation from which Jack White can let loose and go crazy on his instrument, pushing it as far as possible just to see what happens. The guitar becomes a voice of its own, telling the stories in a way that wouldn’t have the same impact if related through lyrics alone. My favourite instance comes midway through Derecho Demonico – ‘You know I got something up my sleeve,’ White sings with his distinctive vocal delivery, ‘I guess you’ll have to try to twist my arm.’ at which point the guitar ratchets up into a wailing, high pitched screaming tone, a howling discordance that eventually settles back into a more structured staccato solo that carries through the rest of the track.
That’s not to say there aren’t some memorable lines scattered throughout the record. They might not be as overt as they were on No Name, but White still delivers the occasionally subtle but pointed political observation – ‘To find a needle in a haystack / Well it’s plenty easy / You just burn down the haystack / And then you’ll find what you need / There ain’t no obstacles that are stronger than greed’ from All Alone Again suggests a cynicism and commentary on the danger of capitalistic motives and the heavy handed, indiscriminate nature of modern politics.
G.O.D And The Broken Ribs on the other hand finds him at his most myth-building, tongue in cheek self. A reframing of the story of Adam and Eve at the end of the world, except this time rock music is the great temptation that promises a new beginning; it is one of the more lyrically intricate songs on the album. It also includes what feels like a slyly humorous acknowledgment of the deliberate confusion surrounding Jack and Meg’s relationship in the early White Stripes days – ’Welcome to the end of the world / Nobody left but / One boy and one girl and one other / But you know we can’t live like a sister and brother’.
Though perhaps my favourite lyric on the album is quite possibly the stupidest – ‘I need you / Like a horse needs shoes’ from I Can’t Believe What I’m Hearing made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it. I don’t know why, maybe it’s in the delivery, but I love it so much!
It is this sense of mischief and playfulness that impresses the most on this record. There’s a great attraction in seeing an artist clearly revelling in the simple joy of creation. By embracing his self imposed restrictions, focusing on putting a limited set of instruments through their paces, White can concentrate on extracting as much from his guitar as possible. The result is an album that captures the chaotic and unpredictable energy of Jack White’s live shows and channels it into a collection of songs that fizz and pulse with a barely contained energy.
This is music that is in your face. It’s not something you play as background music. It demands your attention and effort, and it rewards you with 43 minutes of perfect imperfection that is uniquely Jack White. Thick heavy riffs and crunchy guitar tones give way to wildly unpredictable solos, all underpinned by the throbbing rhythm and relentlessly hypnotic loop of guitar licks that anchor each track. There is the sense throughout the record that things could go drastically off the rails at any moment, and it is this tension that wrenches hold of you and doesn’t let go until it is done.
Guitar music may not be the cultural powerhouse it once was, but with people like Jack White still determined to push the limits of what this kind of music can achieve, we can at least rest easy knowing that it will always be a part of the conversation, and that it still has plenty left to say.
You can pre order/pre save the album here.