By Johnny Firecloud

In 2005, Jack White of The White Stripes got together with Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler of The Greenhornes to write the kind of music they wanted to hear.

Music that would inspire them. With both White and Benson sharing lead vocals and guitar duties, their voices weaving together better than any vocal pair in recent memory, and Lawrence on the bass and Keeler at the drums, The Raconteurs were formed. They released their first album, Broken Boy Soldiers, in 2006, meeting commercial and critical success, but were largely seen as a side project for Jack White to flex his non-candy cane colors.

The Raconteurs' second album, Consolers of the Lonely, is about to prove that theory quite wrong. The 14-track album was released today in all formats, with zero advance promotion beyond a message from the band on their official website a week ago. According to the band, this was done to prevent people like me from telling people like you what we think of the album, so you have no predisposed notions, no vicarious emotions, no thirst for the blood of Nova Scotians....wait. Anyway, the point is that the album was rush released "so that no one has an upper hand on anyone else regarding it's availability, reception or perception," the band said. So, in light of that, please feel free to take this rather glowing assessment of a great album as merely the rantings of a guy who lives for music that pushes the envelope and knocks you on your ass with inspiration.

Where Broken Boy Soldiers was largely a diamond in the rough, the band members still feeling out their respective roles, Consolers of the Lonely is undeniable confirmation that The Raconteurs have hit their stride as a band. It's clear from the very start of the title track that these guys have pulled out all the stops and are loving every second of it. White and the gang are at their blistering, swaggering best, delivering a kaleidoscope of filthy-toned swampy southern rock tones with bluegrass, country and, well, a little bit of prog rock. The live feeling of each song adds to the rich, warm tones, and the band's versatility is remarkable. Inevitably, White's presence is unmistakable and largely dominant throughout the album, evoking the inevitable White Stripes comparisons.

The album opens with sounds of a cheerful gathering, leading into head-bobbing rock bursts, jaw-dropping fills and changes, and White's signature stop-start rock riffs. These carry on further, into "Salute Your Solution," the overachieving offspring of Stripes hits "Blue Orchid" and "Icky Thump." It's here that Benson and White are at their high-octane trade-off best, with bafflingly good basswork by the other Jack, Lawrence. Thumbs way up.

Consolers is rife with the 60's-psychedelic-rock-meets-delta-vagabond-blues that Jack White brings to the table, but there's also a very strong Old West barroom vibe to a few tracks, adding a vintage dynamic that suits their sound well. The band veers clear away from blues rock with the piano ballad "You Don't Understand Me," flexing their musicianship with a rising sound that grabs you the way old Elton John or Billy Joel songs used to. Speaking of the Piano Man, the first third of "Rich Kid Blues" sounds like something straight off The Stranger, before veering into an early-Who-type jam.

Other highlights:

"Top Yourself" is Jack White at his demonic best with a slide guitar, better than any bluesy White Stripes B-side jam. Spooky, gorgeous, brilliant.

"Many Shades of Black" is, quite simply, nothing at all like anything you've heard from any member in The Raconteurs. It's a seductive, epic and beautiful look back on love gone wrong that could easily fit in a Broadway production.

"Five on the Five" is pure rocktastic fun, with an irresistable 60's pop chorus and a frantic beach party jam before the third verse.

The intoxicating, simplistic beauty of Benson & White's vocals in the chorus of "These Stones Will Shout" is the kind of song that makes you want to grab an acoustic guitar. Folky Jethro Tull intro? Works for me.

Consolers of the Lonely is a bold step forward from the tinpan vagabond rock of Broken Boy Soldiers. The boys have found their seal legs and are boldly going into uncharted waters, colors flying high. Admittedly, a good number of these tracks sound like multi-dimensional, fleshed out White Stripes coulda-been songs - but you'd be a fool to call that anything less than a great thing. If nothing else, this album serves as indisputable proof to any Jack White skeptic that they are either mistaken, deaf or soulless. When the man steps outside the fantastic (if a bit gimmicky) little red and white box we're most familiar with seeing him in, it becomes immediately clear why everybody from kids in their parents' basements to Bob Dylan want to work with him - Jack White is a living legend, a freak mutant blend of Jerry Lee Lewis' demonic passion, Dylan's songwriting wizardry and Son House's blues genius. If you don't believe me, go see him live - White Stripes, Raconteurs, doesn't matter; go, and you'll understand.

Perhaps the hipster naysayers, already fiendishly pecking away at the sheen of innovation Lonely possesses, are simply unsure of how to approach such an album. Avant garde retro bayou folk blues delta piano rock? Is there a more narrow category? A smaller hole to pack them in? Who cares. The album is awesome.

CraveOnline Rating: 8 out of 10

Trivia:
The album's title is taken from a quote by American writer and educator Charles William Eliot: "Messenger of sympathy and love, servant of parted friends, consoler of the lonely, bond of the scattered family, enlarge of the common life."