After an 11-year hiatus, the first album from Jack White’s other other band floats in weightless, haughty bliss through a perpetual 2008.
The gloss of celebrity served the Raconteurs well in the late aughts—“the White Stripes are dying, long live Jack White’s new radio-rock band!” But 11 years after the band’s last album, the novelty has faded and the Michiganers—Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence, and Patrick Keeler alongside White himself—have found themselves floating in a weightless, haughty bliss, through a perpetual 2008. Help Us Stranger must now contend with the strength of a new indie rock field, and the mere fact of White’s affiliation is not nearly as compelling as it once was.
