Jack White: No Name (Third Man) assessment: A Freewheeling solo shock

Jack White: No Name (Third Man)

Verdict: Freewheeling solo surprise

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Jack White is a man who enjoys springing surprises. As the boss of his own record label — and owner of three vinyl-focused record shops — he released two contrasting solo albums three months apart in 2022. The same year, he delivered an impromptu performance on The Park stage at Glastonbury.

But even by his standards, the ex-White Stripes frontman’s latest move is novel — a new album, No Name, initially given away free on vinyl with all purchases at his Third Man Records shops in London, Detroit and Nashville.

With White’s blessing, the new songs were shared by fans online, and the album is now being officially released, on blue vinyl and via streaming services, today.

When it first appeared two weeks ago, the album’s 13 tracks were shrouded in mystery. Its white sleeve was blank, with only the words ‘no name’ stamped on the label inside. No song titles or writing credits were included, and even the artist’s name was missing.

It was clear from the music, however, that this was White’s sixth solo album.

When he was fronting The White Stripes with his ex-wife, drummer Meg White, the singer and guitarist forged a back-to-basics sound that mixed Mississippi blues with punk. 

After the Detroit duo called it a day in 2011, he used a series of spin-off bands and hobby projects to experiment with country and electronic pop. On No Name, he’s gone back unequivocally to his garage-band roots.

There were signs of a return to noisy rock and roll on the first of his two 2022 albums, Fear Of The Dawn (the second, Entering Heaven Alive, was folkier). 

But White’s latest incarnation finds him at his most direct: he hasn’t sounded as raw as this since The White Stripes were serving up lean, edgy singles such as 2003’s Seven Nation Army.

Produced and mixed by White himself, it’s an album of short, sharp songs dominated by blistering power-chords, scattergun lyrics and changes of mood and tempo.

Bombing Out is a rough and ready rock number with an improvised guitar solo and lyrics that quote from Sam Cooke’s 1964 single A Change Is Gonna Come, an anthem of the American civil rights movement. 

Number One With A Bullet harks back to the hard rock of Deep Purple, and Missionary features a riff that owes something to The Who’s I Can’t Explain.

It’s Rough On Rats (If You’re Asking) contains the bizarre suggestion that the cost-of-living crisis is worse for rodents: ‘If we’re not eating, then they must have it rougher than us,’ White argues.

A freewheeling spirit sometimes steers the album away from the blues. That’s How I’m Feeling is built around a funk riff, and Underground is a country-rocker boosted by frenzied slide guitar. There’s also an energetic rap on Archbishop Harold Holmes, a song on which the singer plays a preacher promising his flock a ‘special financial blessing’.

His shackles loosened since the end of lockdown, White has been living up to his reputation as one of rock’s busiest musicians. No Name arrives on the back of an imaginative marketing campaign — one that, initially, shunned the online world in favour of an old-school physical release — and it’s a fascinating addition to his extensive repertoire.

Orville Peck: Stampede (Warner)

Verdict: Charging to the top

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As a gay man in country music, Orville Peck has been breaking down barriers since his 2019 debut album, Pony. 

Now a star on the rise, he sang on the tenth anniversary edition of Lady Gaga’s Born This Way — and he’s joined by a stellar cast on Stampede, a new duets album mixing covers and self-penned originals.

Elton John pops up on Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting), adding fresh Nashville nuance to a classic but otherwise sticking to the original’s thumping rock and roll spirit.

Kylie brings her customary glitz to new song Midnight Ride, and Noah Cyrus sounds a lot like her older sister Miley on How Far Will We Take It?.

Peck, who wears a theatrical mask beneath his stetson, is accompanied by Texan legend Willie Nelson on a cover of the camp ballad Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond Of Each Other. The pair harmonise beautifully on the country waltz, written by musician Ned Sublette in 1981.

Peck, born in Johannesburg and based in LA, is adept at subtly switching styles. He duets with silky soul man Teddy Swims on Ever You’re Gone, and sings the highway song Papa Was A Rodeo (originally by The Magnetic Fields) with brilliant bluegrass star Molly Tuttle, harking back to the 1960s duets of Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra.

He occasionally plays second fiddle to his guests — Beck steals the show on Death Valley High — but the 15 tracks here are 50-50 collaborations on which Peck delivers with aplomb and an authentic feel for traditional country-soul.

KACEY MUSGRAVES: Deeper Into The Well (MCA Nashville)

Verdict: Languid holiday listening

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Originally issued in March, Kacey Musgraves’ sixth studio album, Deeper Well, was a low-key release that gradually revealed its laid-back charms. 

Now repackaged as Deeper Into The Well, with seven new tracks, it’s a perfect piece of languid summer listening.

The Texan first made her mark as a dime-store cowgirl who rattled the Nashville establishment with candid lyrics and detours into rock and disco.

She’s since taken her ‘galactic country’ into the pop mainstream, and the new tracks reiterate her penchant for simple but moving love songs that skip between the blissful and the bruised. 

She celebrates a blossoming romance on Ruthless, but finds herself on the painful end of a break-up on Irish Goodbye, lamenting an ex-lover who left her without a proper farewell.

Elsewhere, she sings of her family: Little Sister is a piano ballad that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Carole King’s Tapestry.Musgraves (right) also delights on two new duets. 

She hooks up with fellow Texan Leon Bridges on the soulful Superbloom, and sings with Boston folk trio Tiny Habits on the softly strummed Perfection. Her creative well certainly hasn’t run dry.