“How do you feel when you’ve felt it all now? How do you see when you’ve seen it all?” Those are the last words Jack White sings on No Name, the rad new album he’s officially releasing today after slipping white label copies to unsuspecting Third Man Records customers two weeks ago. (The properly labeled album went on sale at Third Man shops today, and tomorrow it hits the internet and select indie record stores.)
The closing track on which White utters those words, “Terminal Archenemy Endling,” is a song about the pleasures of loving partnership: “When I hear your call/ It feels like coming home/ Like I’m 10 feet tall/ And younger than anyone at all.” But it’s also, in a sense, about how after years spent wandering, there can be great comfort in the familiar: “Where would I be if I didn’t know you?/ From a factory to a country home/ And what would I have if I never really had you?/ What’s the point of being free if I’m all alone?” Throughout the song, White reckons with his hubris and revels in his good fortune, drifting along on a floaty “Are You Experienced”-meets-“The Same Boy You’ve Always Known” groove that intermittently bursts into hard-crashing classic rock euphoria.
Presumably “Terminal Archenemy Endling” is addressed to his wife, Olivia Jean, who he married onstage in 2022 at a concert in his native Detroit. But when I heard that line — “Where would I be if I didn’t know you?” — at first I thought he was singing to Meg White, paying tribute to his old bandmate’s role in his rise to fame. The White Stripes’ success owed so much to the dynamic between Jack and Meg, after all — the initial confusion about their relationship, the tension between his madcap virtuosity and her steady unshowiness, how fucking cool the two of them looked together. Maybe a force of nature like Jack White would have become a rock star under any circumstances, but the duo’s peculiar chemistry and allure was what launched him to the vaunted status he enjoys today.
Once I listened more closely and got my hands on a lyrics sheet, it became obvious that, no, this song is not Jack White’s tribute to Meg White. But my original confused read made sense to me in the moment for two reasons. For one thing, the subject of Meg’s contributions to the band was in the discourse last year after a journalist’s inflammatory tweet suggested she’s a bad drummer who held the band back, prompting responses from Jack and others, so why wouldn’t he write a song about it? But also, Meg was on the mind because No Name represents another kind of homecoming: It’s the closest thing to a White Stripes LP White has released since the band broke up in 2011.
Part of the appeal of the Stripes was that they could push their music in so many different directions. They were a band that could credibly pull off a punk song like “Fell In Love With A Girl,” a hootenanny like “Hotel Yorba,” an explosive blues-rocker like “Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground,” and a twee ballad like “We’re Going To Be Friends” on the same album. So No Name’s aesthetic consistency is probably the least Stripes-y thing about it. Other White solo albums have done more to maintain that adventurous spirit, and in 2022, before releasing two very different LPs, he talked about his desire to keep pushing his music into uncharted territory. That year’s Fear Of The Dawn certainly took things to the brink, weaving dub, hip-hop, electronics, and more into rangy rock songs that contorted into weird shapes while providing a jolt.
Yet No Name feels like a return to form because it taps back into the essence that made White’s early music so much fun. It evokes the Stripes not with restless creativity but by situating White squarely within the realm of loose, raw, lo-fi garage rock. Fear Of The Dawn and its poppier, acoustic-led companion Entering Heaven Alive were perfectly solid albums, but they didn’t excite the way White’s best work always has. Even at their most potent, they could feel overly fussy or professional. By comparison, within a minute of pressing play on opener “Old Scratch Blues” it’s evident that White is back in his comfort zone, thriving. Call it fan service if you want, but I hear it as a generational talent getting back to what he does best.
There are moments that explicitly recall certain Stripes songs, like the post-Zeppelin groove on “Archbishop Harold Holmes” that calls back to “Hello Operator.” But more than specific song templates, the resemblance is about conjuring the wild-and-free feeling that has eluded White’s recent output. The album is built on a series of humongous riffs and chord progressions that don’t try to get too clever, paired with vocal hooks that had imprinted themselves on my brain by my second listen. (“That’s How I’m Feeling,” woo!) There are changes of pace, like the country-fried “Underground” and the breathlessly racing “Number One With A Bullet,” but it never ceases to sound like a band sticking within its chosen palette, bashing out bangers in the basement. In reality, these recordings are all White, not a group playing live, which makes the freewheeling feeling even more impressive.
White is in his bag lyrically, too. He brings his unmistakable off-kilter perspective to lines like “As bad as we got it, it sure must be rough on rats,” delivered amidst a powerful tumbling groove and unhinged slide guitar theatrics. He coins indelible refrains like “Tonight was a long time ago,” punctuating bombastic, wide-open measures of FM radio guitars-and-drums fare. Along the way he gets in some unspecific barbs at religion, his own naysayers, and post-truth society. None of it surprising coming from White, and all of it delivered with the fiery old-school showmanship that has always been his creative voice, that feeling that he’s a preacher whose every word hits like a lightning strike. I cannot wait to hear these songs live.
What makes No Name so winsome is that none of it feels forced. The bluesy classic rock tropes White toys around with here are the easiest way for a guitarist to stumble into cliché — many musicians have talked about the need to avoid falling into the same old pentatonic scales that rockers have been wearing thin for decades — but White has always brimmed with enough vigor, virtuosity, and baked-in quirks to make well-worn tricks of the trade feel vital again. At times, the desire to challenge himself and his listeners has even undermined the raw power he can summon when operating at the peak of his powers. These songs don’t come at you from unexpected angles the way White Stripes tracks sometimes did, but their relative straightforwardness does nothing to diminish their power. This shit rips. Coming from Jack White, what more could you want?
No Name is out now at Third Man retail locations at 8/2 digitally via Third Man Records. Vinyl pre-order will be available 8/2 via Third Man and White’s website.
