Product Description

Debut album from indie supergroup featuring Jack White of White Stripes fame and powerpop legend Brendan Benson, together with the rhythm section from garage rock stars the Greenhornes. Recording their album in downtime from their respective day jobs, the band has since grown into a full-time concern. Showcasing its members' considerable combined songwriting talents, the band's sound is a tuneful and memorable collision of raw blues, garage rock fury and sugary indie pop.

Track Listing

1. Steady, As She Goes
2. Hands
3. Broken Boy Soldier
4. Intimate Secretary
5. Together
6. Level
7. Store Bought Bones
8. Yellow Sun
9. Call It A Day
10. Blue Veins

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #184 in Music
• Released on: 2006-05-15
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Formed around the core of old friends Jack White of the White Stripes and fellow Detroit musician Brendan Benson, The Raconteurs' debut album Broken Boy Soldiers sees White playing apart from his "sister"-muse Meg for the first time in almost a decade. Backed up by a rhythm section of Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler of The Greenhornes, who Jack previously enlisted to play on Loretta Lynn's 2004 album Van Lear Rose, this is a grit-under-the-fingernails rock offering, but with an ear for eclecticism that brings to mind classic rock touchstones from the Beatles' Revolver to Led Zep's Physical Graffiti. "Steady As She Goes" is a catchy, robust rock opener that bears resemblance to the Stripes' choppy garage-rock minimalism, but before long, The Raconteurs are writing their own brief, White and Benson weaving Lennon-McCartney style vocal harmonies on the likes of "Hands" and "Together", or summoning up a clamourous sense of runaway-train doom on the White-sung "Broken Boy Soldier". It's sturdy and enjoyable, in a familiar sort of way, but the eccentric "Intimate Secretary" ("This ringing in my ears won't stop/I've got a red Japanese teapot") aside, it lacks the offbeat eccentricity and one-of-a-kind chemistry that makes the Stripes unique. --Louis Pattison

From the Label
The Raconteurs are a new band made up of old friends, consisting of Jack Lawrence (bass), Patrick Keeler (drums), Brendan Benson (guitars, vocals, keys) and Jack White (guitars, vocals, keys). The seed was sewn in an attic in the middle of a hot summer when friends Jack White and Brendan Benson got together and wrote a song that truly inspired them. This song was "Steady, As She Goes" and the inspiration led to the creation of a full band with the addition of Lawrence and Keeler. While each of these four individuals have had successful careers with their own bands, the culmination of all of their talents is what truly makes The Raconteurs a force to be reckoned with.

The quartet convened at Benson's East Grand Studio to lay down the basic tracks for Broken Boy Soldiers. Work would continue whenever the boys could get together over the next year. The band is now, for its members, all consuming and they now present themselves to be consumed, or at best simply heard.

From the ready-made, radio-friendly quality built into songs like "Steady, As She Goes", to the explosive tenacity of "Store Bought Bones", all the way down to the "hits the cockles of your heart" lullabies that encompass the full length recording, The Raconteurs are more than capable of conquering any genre challenge or tale that they encounter. After all, a raconteur is, by definition, a deft storyteller. And now a new story is unfolding.

Customer Reviews

fantastic
This album is amazing. It's not the white stripes so don't compare it to them, just listen and make up your own mind. A few years down the line this will be considered a classic album.

Sure to be classic album
The more I listen to this album, the more derivative it sounds, but the music is so good, who cares? Brendan Benson and Jack White are such talented artists and they complement one another brilliantly, both musically and vocally. There's not a bad song on this album and it has to be a classic. I'd say there's something to appeal to everyone who likes good music, but my personal favourite is the lovely Steady As She Goes. We keep playing it in the car, makes long journeys go by in an instant.

Great Fun - No More No Less
The Raconteurs is a side-project; a break from the day job for four established musicians, most notably Jack White. These guys are not trying to change the world with `Broken Boy Soldiers', they are merely enjoying themselves and this point seems to have been lost on some reviewers.

The album should not be judged in the context of other releases by White or Benson but be viewed for what it is; a great rock album - no more no less.

In just over 33 minutes the band rip through a dizzying range of styles. It almost feels like a potted history of rock. `Steady As She Goes's loping bassline and quiet-loud guitar dynamic instantly recalls Pixies; `Hands' is a grand guitar-pop number reminiscent of `Bends'-era Radiohead and the title track is mutant 70s blues-rock a la Led Zeppelin.

`Intimate Secretary' is a great indie-thrash track with superbly eccentric lyrics: `I gotta rabbit it likes to hop/I gotta girl and she likes to shop' which make you smile until the band come out with: `I had an uncle but he got shot'. The smooth sound of `Together' reminded me weirdly of `Easy' by the Commodores, but that might be just me.

`Store Bought Bones' features a blast of squally guitars which would be quite at home on a Butthole Surfers track whilst the album closes with the bar-room blues of `Call It a Day' and `Blue Veins', the latter quite creepy and experimental.

The songwriting and musicianship are is of a very high standard throughout, all of the tracks are so different to each other but memorable in their own way. Love it, great fun.