Yahoo! Music Review

Released on 05/05/08
Label: XL

Brendan Benson must be in a foul mood right now. He's spent two years slogging through humiliating interviews insisting that The Raconteurs are not a Jack White vanity project, released two Raconteurs albums in the same time period, and ensured they are so loaded with his guitar fireworks that there's no mistaking his contribution. Then what happens? The first single off the second album is the only song on it which sounds exactly like The White Stripes.

So "Salute Your Solution" boasts White's most stripped down, scuzzy riff since "Blue Orchid" and his most compelling vocal since his delicious turn on Electric 6's "Danger! High Voltage". Benson tries to match White's vocal for spittle flecked energy and throws a ton of guitar histrionics on top towards the end, but there's no escaping the fact that as a child, "Salute Your Solution" takes after White and not him. That it's also probably the best song off "Consolers Of The Lonely" must add insult to injury.

    by Jaime Gill