Blunderbuss

When a big-time rock star decides to record a solo album, the most common choice is to strip down the sound, to reveal some bare musical bones. But since Jack White made his name playing minimal, punky garage rock with the White Stripes, he headed in the opposite direction with his first “solo” record, Blunderbuss. It’s a heavily layered album featuring contributions from 18 musicians kicking around the studio at White’s record label in Tennessee who provide interjections of honky-tonk piano, layers of soulful backing vocals and mournful lap steel guitar. The end product gives the impression White is obsessed with the golden era of rock; save for some futuristic, glitchy guitar leads here and there, Blunderbuss could pass for an album recorded in the early ’70s. And while devotees of White’s previous work with the White Stripes and the Raconteurs will expect oodles of nasty guitar licks, he mostly favors keyboards with tracks like the groove-centric “Missing Pieces,” the nostalgic and beautiful “Love Interruption” and the short-but-sweet “Hypocritical Kiss.” Even when he’s busy showing off how well-rounded a musician he is, White is at his best while stirring up a ruckus on tracks like “Sixteen Saltines,” a three-chord head-banger about … saltines. Yeah.