In the days of rock’s youth, we were told what it meant to be a man. Presley was said to be the first star to slick back his hair, with Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, and Gene Vincent soon also to sport the telltale pompadour of the reckless troubadour. Roger Daltrey pioneered bare-chested fringe jackets and a masculine/fey dialectic which Robert Plant both refined and operatically expanded upon, in ways that remain transporting and mortifying in equal measure. Rod Stewart begat Paul Westerberg who begat Kurt Cobain, the chiseled, raspy-voiced pretty boy with a chip on their shoulder and a melody in their heart. And then, seemingly, the bloodline ended, save except for one man. A real, live bastard of young. It’s incredibly been 25 years since the White Stripes’ absurdly infectious, blown-out riff bonanza White Blood Cells made it clear that we now had a long-term situation on our hands. Jack White—some might say the last of his breed—is now in middle age. What a loud, strange trip it’s been.
Enter Frozen Charlotte, a sleek new machine comprised of old parts, 13 songs over 43 minutes of admirably crazed night-terror boogie, fleet-fingered car-crash jams, and haunted incantations. On his seventh solo album, there has become something of the mad monk to White’s persona: a bona fide adept of ancient blues-rock texts, so virtuosic in his mastery as to simultaneously inspire profound appreciation and light concern for his sanity. Indeed, from the ominous rumble of opener “G.O.D. and the Broken Ribs,” with its “White Rabbit” beat and Old Testament ranting, there is something liturgical about Frozen Charlotte, a retelling of double-crosses and dire storms and generational curses and scarlet women and untamable men and all of the things that Screamin’ Jay Hawkins was so frightened of. On Frozen Charlotte, White’s scared too—out of his wits. Not for the first time, and not for the last, dark forces have converged to imperil humanity. Never a shrinking violet, White’s stance is adversarial. The old formulation goes, who wins the street fight: the tough guy or the crazy guy? If Frozen Charlotte has a theme, this could be it. White’s betting on crazy.
All of this makes for a lot of fun. Without ever straying terribly far from his knitting—there will be no moonlight trips to fusion—White has managed to wrangle a handful of his best riffs and hooks in recent memory. The strutting, declarative “Nobody Knows” sounds like For Those About to Rock-era AC/DC trying to explain Plato’s allegory of the cave. With the spidery, wildly unspooling riffs of “Dollar Bill” and “Thick as Thieves” he’s retrieving still more toys from an attic that seems endlessly replenishable. “I Can’t Believe What I’m Hearing” exhilaratingly evokes the meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy nursery rhyme pummel of the early Who and adds a scintillating Frampton Comes Alive! solo as a freebie. On “All Alone Again,” he and his longtime crackerjack four-piece band, including drummer Patrick Keeler, bassist Dominic Davis, and keyboardist Bobby Emmett, keep finding pockets in pockets, the true sound of soul survivors. “Born under a blue sky/But we’ve been alone since we’ve been home.” Bad and nationwide.
Best of all is the bratty “She’s in a Frenzy,” exploring the knottier side of glam and a perfect manifestation of his birth year, 1975. The man knows and can speak the alphabet, from Allman to Zappa. Here’s a nod to punk, or at least early punk, by which I mean early KISS. And Alice Cooper. He sings: “There’s a thousand ways to ignite these fires/But I only know one way to put them out.”
Neil Young talked about this. Rock’n’roll will never die. Not if we don’t get in front of the problem. When Aerosmith recorded their 1989 “comeback album” Pump, the oldest member was Steven Tyler at 41. In the meantime, we have Frozen Charlotte, a muscular, hard-edged, how-to manual for the true nature’s child. The student is now the teacher. School’s in for summer.
