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So he did, and released it on April 17.  The new space-rock album is called Sweet Heart Sweet Light, and includes every style you could imagine, woven together into a great piece.

Originally, the album was going to be called Huh? (which explains the cover art for the album), due to the mental stupor caused by the drugs Pierce was taking for liver disease at the time he wrote the album.  He even thanks two of the doctors he was seeing for the disease in the CD insert, who say he’s all good now.

Pierce has claimed that the more upbeat feel of this album is due to the mental state he was in, he needed to be working on something more upbeat than his previous work.  The beginning of “So Long You Pretty Thing” was actually written spontaneously by Pierce’s daughter, Poppy, who was just 9 when she wrote it and 11 when the song was recorded.  Her vocals are included in the intro, which you can listen to here.

The album includes a lot more reflection in the lyrics, deep meaning in every word, and it is touching and uplifting to listen to, even when the lyrics are positive in an almost there’s-nothing-left-to-lose way.  The rock and roll beats and vocals are intertwined with gospel-y sounds, also including an Icelandic string ensemble and LA based pop vocal group in a few tracks.  As you go through the tracks on the album, works really well together and is a coherent piece despite the varying sound elements.  It goes from rock to pop to gospel and back again, all with the heartfelt (while simultaneously being almost melancholy) vocals of J. Spaceman.  Overall, a good album with varying sounds, definitely check it out for a great collection of tracks.

I’ll be honest here, I was a little let down after the first listen. Jack White, the first garage rock guitar player I ever heard, ripped my virgin ears to shreds with 2003′s Elephant and I loved every minute of it. He stole my heart with the surprisingly emotional “You’ve Got Her in Your Pocket” and the Raconteur’s “Together”. He utterly delighted me in 2007 with Icky Thump’s “Conquest” (which remained my ringtone for much of my high school career) and the popular “Steady as She Goes”. Recently, it seemed like he was showing up everywhere with everyone, playing every instrument. So finally, finally he decides to release a solo album. Jack White, on his own, unfettered, with no one to hold him back.

With expectations like that, I was bound to be a little disappointed. But I have to say this album is growing on me. Instead of the in-your-face insane riffs and at times absurd lyrics of the White Stripes, or the straightforward story telling of the Raconteurs, White presents the world with a subtle, slightly more subdued work of art.

Blunderbuss, or as I like to call it, Jack White Sings about Women, exemplifies some of White’s best qualities. He can shred on the guitar for minutes at a time without boring anyone, he can write lyrics that make absolutely no sense but sound perfect, and, perhaps one of his best talents, he can write about deep, personal emotions while admitting nothing.

White writes about love, loss, and obsession from all sides of the issues. He sings of a girl who doesn’t care how much she hurts him as she “cut off the bottom of [his] feet, made [him] walk on salt.” He obsessively thinks about a girl that all the boys seem to be after in school, but then wonders “who’s jealous of who?” He writes of the “men that fall so deep in love they start to weep themselves to sleep” but then complains that “sometimes someone controls everything about you when they tell you they can’t live without you” when a woman literally takes parts of his body with her after they break up.

It is hard to get a good idea of when White is writing from his own life, and how he actually feels about it. The closing track alludes to his recent divorce with singer Karen Elson with lines like “take me with you when you go girl, take me anywhere you go,” and distress about the realization that “helping yourself could be hurting or harming someone else,” but lacks the emotional power of The White Stripes’ “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself.” On one of the most upbeat and surprisingly cutting songs on the album, “Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy,” White clearly calls out former bandmate/wife/sister Meg by saying “you’ll be watching me girl, taking over the world. Let the stripes unfurl.”

Musically, White is experimenting. There’s a surprising amount of piano on the album, including funky keyboard bits and the jazzy riff on the closing song. Fiddles, clarinets, mandolins, and violins sound throughout the tracks, but the album as a whole lacks musical coherency. And where are the ear-shattering guitar riffs we have all come to know and love Jack White for? Blunderbuss seems to be Jack White’s foray into different genres (jazz, blues, even country) and styles, but leaves listeners wondering which one White liked best.

In the end, this album will be remembered as a great introduction to Jack White as a solo artist. Despite the experimentation, the album at times harkens back to the intense rock of The White Stripes days, but still shows White’s growth as an artist. And he’s still growing–despite what critics have to say. In one of the most poignant lines on the album, White says “the people around me won’t let me become what I need to, they want me the same.” Luckily for us, he doesn’t let what other people want stop him from anything at all.

1. Heartless Bastards, “Parted Ways”
2. Brendan Benson, “What Kind of World”
3. Dancing Heals, “Diamonds”
4. Mogwai, “Hound of Winter”
5. Niki and the Dove, “The Drummer”
6. Guards, “Do It Again”
7. Jack White, “Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy”
8. Charles Bradley, “Heartaches and Pain”
9. Animal Kingdom, “Strange Attractor”
10. The Chambermaids, “China Blue”
11. Tara Priga, “Run Like Hell”
12. Pennywise, “Let Us Hear Your Voice”

1. Chains of Love, “All the Time”
2. Miniature Tigers, “Sex on the Regular”
3. Dry the River, “Weights and Measures”
4. MxPx, “Far Away”
5. The Cribs, “Come On, Be A No One”
6. Gorillaz feat. Andre 3000 and James Murphy, “DoYaThing”
7. Gold Motel, “Safe in LA”
8. Taproot, “No Surrender”
9. Sleigh Bells, “Comeback Kid”
10. Torche, “Kicking”
11. IAMDYNAMITE, “Stereo”
12. The Big Pink, “Hit the Ground (Superman)”
13. The Middle East, “Jesus Came to My Birthday Party”

1. The Cult, “For the Animals”
2. Jonquil, “It’s My Part”
3. Big Sir, “Ready On the Line”
4. Puscifer, “Telling Ghosts”
5. Husky, “History’s Door”
6. Geographer, “Kites”
7. Jack White, “Hypocritical Kiss”
8. Fucked Up, “Queen of Hearts”
9. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, “Senator”
10. Shearwater, “Breaking the Yearlings”
11. Oberhofer, “Away Frm U”
12. SBTRKT, “Hold On”
13. The Poison Oaks, “Pine”