Inventive, intense and unexpectedly fun, Lazaretto is one of the best break-up albums of recent years.
It works, at least partly because White’s version of a big production is more about layering sounds until he hits on something right, rather than polishing something until its defining cracks fade away.
The songs are exciting, effortlessly creative and full of risk-taking, but White taps into the vein of classic rock just enough to filter all of his weird extrapolations so that they’re comprehensible for his audience.
Literally a house of blues (the title is Italian for a lepers' hospital), with each room outfitted according to White's mood and trials.
Lazaretto finds him simultaneously unbridled as a player, yet meticulous as both mad scientist and personal diarist.
With Lazaretto Jack White continues putting excitement, fun and freshness back into modern music.
Lazaretto is Jack White’s finest effort.
The extra care and attention shows too- this feels like a deeper record than its predecessor, 2012’s well-received Blunderbuss, not as pretty but certainly sharper and more elegantly formed
For an artist creating an increasingly difficult job for himself, White goes consistently easy on his listeners.
This is another whopping, XXL effort from White, proving that although he may get roped into the celebrity dross every once in awhile, he can still manufacture art in spite of distractions.
That eccentricity is the pleasure of Lazaretto, which is by every measure the strangest record associated with White since 2005's Get Behind Me Satan
At times, despite the fact that this is his 12th collection of compositions, it’s often as if Lazaretto is Jack White at his most vulnerable.
In taking his time, mining old material of his own as well as others’, swapping and switching personnel between sessions and embracing a little more of the 21st Century, ‘Lazaretto’ is perhaps the most conventionally made of White’s back catalogue.
Lazaretto, White’s second true solo release, is a musical return to form.
White’s best songs combine his songwriting chops with his boundless charisma, and Lazaretto has both in spades.
Introspective where Blunderbuss was voracious, White offers up a banquet of sounds and styles, ranging from country and bluegrass to hard rock and hip hop.
It’s bold, but Lazaretto argues that White’s legacy may still be intact if he plans on waiting several more years for the third act.
Despite Jack White's claims that each song is separate due to the archive nature of his source material Lazaretto is a cohesive entity made distinct by the range of styles and structural arrangements on individual tracks.
Lazaretto makes all of his other projects sound a bit scrawny by comparison. It’s the densest, fullest, craziest, and most indulgent that White has sounded with or without Meg
The songs that make up Lazaretto are the most diverse on a White album since Get Behind Me Satan, and even more impressively, the songs themselves could stand alongside those on Icky Thump and Consolers of the Lonely thanks to the wonderful arrangements.
Lazaretto is a fine and respectable piece in its own right.
... a varied album that lacks any monster riffs like the ones White used to write for The White Stripes, but includes enough intrigue, originality and plain weirdness to delight and, in some places, appal.
The 11 tracks are still packed with those “tricks,” but like the record’s subject matter, the occurrences are controlled, nuanced, or flawlessly smoothed out like the icing on a bakery-made birthday cake.
This is an exceptional rock album by a guy who really is the kind of rock star he’s aiming to be.
Lazaretto will no doubt be heavily scrutinized by critics and celebrated by hardcore fans, but love it or hate it, nobody can call this stuff "watered-down."
Lazaretto is full of brash, forceful songs, further indulging the intense id formerly balanced by the White Stripes’ sweet-and-salty duality.
Lazaretto can be neatly divided into electrics and acoustics, or side A and side B, respectively. For the first time in White’s performing career, though, the second group is more representative of the record as a whole and more crucial to its success.
Like its predecessor, Blunderbuss, it’s a mixed bag, roughly split between heavy blues-rock and country, many songs supposedly drawing on teenage writings White unearthed in a drawer.
Lazaretto's experimentation sounds ambivalent, its songs fractured and distracted.
The only crime Lazaretto commits that wasn’t already covered by his misogynistic solo debut, Blunderbuss, is being really boring.
ok so first off, holy shit, the vinyl of this is incredible. go watch the youtube video about it on the third man channel. but yeah the album itself is pretty good too. there are a few underwhelming tracks but the majority is amazing.
faves. title track, temporary ground, would you fight, entitlement, alone in my home
least faves: just one drink, want and able, three women
The tracks that are okay are there, but the tracks that stand out REALLY stand out.
Three Woman - 8
Lazaretto - 10
Temporary Ground - 5
Would You Fight For My Love? - 10
High Ball Stepper - 10
Just One Drink - 6.5
Alone In My Home - 6
That Black Bat Licorice - 10
I Think I Found The Culprit - 8.5
Want and Able - 5.5
sounds kinda lazy-retto at times
EDIT: +10 because the title track goes so fucking hard. i love u jack white
I think I just gotta get used to Jack White not making garage rock for half these albums lol
Alone in My Home is good for when you've recently become single and you're filling the void by buying and listening to your favorite musician on vinyl from his record store in his/your home state (not that I would know anything about that)
7/10
good
Fav tracks: Three Women, Lazaretto, Would You Fight For My Love?, High Ball Stepper, Alone In My Home, That Black Bat Licorice
1 | Three Women 3:57 | 80 |
2 | Lazaretto 3:39 | 94 |
3 | Temporary Ground 3:13 | 83 |
4 | Would You Fight For My Love? 4:09 | 87 |
5 | High Ball Stepper 3:52 | 84 |
6 | Just One Drink 2:35 | 74 |
7 | Alone In My Home 3:27 | 78 |
8 | Entitlement 4:06 | 70 |
9 | That Black Bat Licorice 3:50 | 93 |
10 | I Think I Found The Culprit 3:49 | 78 |
11 | Want and Able 2:34 | 71 |
#1 | / | CraveOnline |
#4 | / | MOJO |
#4 | / | The Telegraph |
#6 | / | Gigwise |
#7 | / | Diffuser |
#8 | / | BBC Radio 6 Music |
#9 | / | Esquire (US) |
#18 | / | No Ripcord |
#20 | / | NME |
#20 | / | Rough Trade |