It was always easy to assume that Jack White’s solo material wouldn’t be a vast sonic departure from his trademark White Stripes sound. Certainly he has experimented a bit in other bands like The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather, but the man simply has a distinct style, and you’d be entirely forgiven if you thought “Sixteen Saltines” – first debuted on the Lindsay Lohan-hosted “Saturday Night Live” episode a couple weeks ago – was just another new track by any of the above groups.
But that’s not a missive, because this is White doing what he does best: from the crunchy, bluesy riff (even the title of the track seems to be a reference to the blues icons that inspired him), to the unmistakable, sneering voice, this is White having a lot of fun rocking out and not being bogged down by the pretensions and overzealous aspirations that often hinder popular bandmembers’ solo work. He isn’t trying to prove anything or separate himself from his past work. So far both tracks officially released by White have been solid – hopefully the rest of his LP, Blunderbuss, follows this trend.
