Jack White Goes Bonkers With the Deliriously Twisty Headbanging of ‘Fear of the Dawn’: Album Review
variety.comChris Willman Music WriterIf “Fear of the Dawn,” Jack White’s new solo album, were any more b-a-n-a-n-a-s than it is, he’d have to change his current color scheme of choice from blue back to yellow.
And it’s not low-hanging fruitiness we’re talking about here. The record is tailor-made for headbangers and brainiacs, both — veering loudly between what used to be known in pre-metal days as “heavy music” and the kind of moment-by-moment gear-shifts and surprises that have usually been the province of headier prog-rock.
You can imagine him hanging up a “Mad genius at work” sign on the studio door, but it’s at least as primal as it is experimental.In short, this may be the most fun album Jack White has made or ever will make.
That’s a statement that should quickly be amended with the warning that it won’t be everybody’s idea of a good time — not with ferocious, free-rage songs that bounce every few bars from one burning riff to an even more incendiary one, like the ADHD-afflicted love child of Metallica and a jazz fusion group. (“Queens of the Stone Age meet Yes out in the garage” also came to mind as an introductory simile.) But if you let yourself go with White’s brand of attention-deficit disorderly conduct, what a bonkers blast “Fear of the Dawn” is … thrilling enough to almost singlehandedly make up for how unexciting most of the rest of rock ‘n’ roll is at the moment.
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