Somewhere between his increasingly fussy solo albums, and certainly by the time he started policing audiences’ cell phones, it became clear that Jack White was not the uninhibited nonconformist he played so convincingly with the White Stripes. Since that duo disbanded in 2011, White has systematically sucked almost all the fun from his image, revealing that this avatar of effortless cool was actually bound by a complicated code of unwritten rules he was more than happy to lecture music publications about. It’s been a heel turn akin to watching the coolest senior in your high school return as the district’s biggest stickler of a substitute
What a difference one record can make. Of all the considerable feats pulled by White’s raucous, ripping, unrelenting sixth solo album, No Name, perhaps the most remarkable is how cleanly it wipes the slate after a decade-plus of traditionalist scolding, divisive experiments, and creative misfires. No Name reconnects White with the primal impulses that made the Stripes so undeniable. It’s a comeback that instantly announces itself as a contender for White’s best solo record: 42 minutes of amp-busting blues punk that reveals the old Jack White was behind the curtain all along, hungry and undiminished, waiting for the right moment to make his reentrance.
Thanks to savvy guerilla marketing, No Name arrives with its lore prewritten. It was surprise-released July 19 at White’s Third Man Records shops, where uncredited, white-sleeved pressings were slipped into the bags of unsuspecting customers. This wasn’t like the time White hid 7″s inside of reupholstered furniture, though. He wanted the world to hear and discover this record, and Third Man’s social accounts encouraged fans to “rip it” and share. The project’s raw immediacy initially suggested it might be throwaway, a palette cleanser before White resumed his usual studio tinkering, but its triple-octane riffage and seething, sticky hooks pointed to something more lasting and substantial. Even the last couple of White Stripes albums weren’t this stacked.
The all killer, no filler ethos is a far cry from Fear of the Dawn, the absolutely gonzo solo record White released in 2022. Where that record invited listeners to marvel at its virtuosity and gawk at its sadistically counterintuitive creative choices, No Name leans into his most intuitive, meat-and-potato impulses. Opener “Old Scratch Blues” thrashes with the gravity of Led Zeppelin’s most titanic riffs, while “That’s How I’m Feeling” plays like a belated stab at one last great, aughts-style rock revival single. “Bombing Out” may be the most convincing two and half minutes of scuzzy hardcore you’ll hear from a 49-year-old this year.
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White’s churlish demeanor belies the radical empathy of his worldview. On “It’s Rough on Rats (If You’re Asking),” he asks for consideration of the have-nots (“As bad as we got it/It sure must be rough on rats”). On “Archbishop Harold Holmes,” he sermonizes over itchy, AC/DC-caliber guitar licks that “hate is trying to take someone else’s love for yourself/But I’m here to tell you that love is trying to help someone else.” With its pit-starting thrash, “Bless Myself” similarly leans into White’s screaming-pastor shtick, preaching the virtues of divorcing spirituality from organized religion: “‘God on command/God on demand’/If God’s too busy I’ll bless myself!” Of course, the lyrics never matter as much as the authority with which he sneers, spits, and barks. It’s amazing how dialing up the conviction can turn “uh oh, Jack White is rapping” into “fuck yeah, Jack White is rapping.”
In a certain light, a back-to-basics project like this could seem like a retreat, an easy win for an artist who hasn’t scored in a while. Yet there’s real risk in releasing an album that so brazenly invites comparison to White’s best work, especially amid the hardening conventional wisdom about the irreplaceability of Meg White. With No Name, White resets the narrative: If he fell off, it was on his own terms. Now he’s back and in total mastery of a domain no other act claimed in his absence. Maybe he really can turn it on like a light switch.
