The Raconteurs- Consolers Of The Lonely

Has this ever happened to you?
You're really into this band and you say to your friends,
"Check these guys out! They're awesome!" and so you play them your favourite song by this awesome band but the entire time you can help but notice the slight little twitches their face makes or a little yawn they let off, and your paranoia tells you that all this means that they CLEARLY don't like what you're playing them. So you turn it off and let them play something.

Well this happens to me all the time and in fact this happened to me today, I played my friends at school the title track of The Raconteurs' masterpiece (in my opinion) "Consolers of The Lonely".

The song starts out with a pretty sick riff for the first one or two bars and then completely halts to make way for a drum line that is apparently completely out of tempo. Now either these men are musical geniuses, coming up with such an idea or their drummer is REALLY crap!

Now by this time in the song I'm already paranoid that my friends don't like what they're hearing, but if you're more open minded than my friends are you will listen on to hear a CRAZY-ASS SONG!

Being the fan boy of The White Stripes that I am I just assume that all this musical genius is the workings of my idol, Jack White, who is the apparent front man of the 4 man Detroit rock outfit, but you gotta give credit to every member and instrument in this band! 'Cause this is one of the few bands I know of that are still around that use a mandolin! (Which is one of my favourite instruments) and the fact that they don't treat the piano as back round noise, like most pop stuff lately as you'll clearly hear in Track 3 "You Don't Understand Me". I also love the use of the hammered organ and fiddle in the next track "Old Enough."Clearly when one makes it as big as Jack has with The White Stripes you can really go crazy in your side band! Of course following the recent demise of The White Stripes in February 2011 this may not be the "Side Band" anymore.

The highlight, for me, of the album is the blues narrative, Track 14 "Carolina Drama," which tells the story of love, homicide and red necks in the state of Carolina! This is my favourite song on the album and I think it's a great way to finish off! AND IT'S GOT MANDOLIN!!!

This is the second album from The Raconteurs and it's a great one! This bluesy album is great for almost any mood, 'cause it's got a song for any occasion!

Check them out. Here's a link to  The Raconteurs- Consolers of the Lonely  track.

Please tell your friends about my blog and leave comments telling me what you think of The Raconteurs and of my page, I' m still working everything out so there will be changes to this page.

I'll be back next week with another Recommendation, so until then, Turn Up the Volume and Plug in Your Head!

Xtian Zzyzx