Click Here for Video Sample! Grammy Award-Winning Rock Band's 3rd Studio Album on Vinyl LP!
Featuring A Cover Of Donovan's "Hey Gyp (Dig The Slowness)"!
The Raconteurs Jack White, Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence, and Patrick Keeler announce the release of their long-awaited new album, HELP US STRANGER, which is the GRAMMY® Award-winning rock band's third studio LP and first new album in more than a decade.
HELP US STRANGER sees the mighty combo reassembled, stronger and perhaps even more vital than ever before as they continue to push rock 'n' roll forward into its future, bonding prodigious riffs, blues power, sinewy psychedelia, Detroit funk, and Nashville soul via Benson and White's uncompromising songcraft and the band's steadfast musical muscle. With HELP US STRANGER, The Raconteurs have returned right when they are needed most, unified and invigorated with boundless ambition, infinite energy and a collectivist spirit operating at the peak of its considerable powers, once again creating a sound and fury only possible when all four of its members come together.
White and Benson wrote all the songs on HELP US STRANGER except one cover, "Hey Gyp (Dig The Slowness)", which was written by Donovan. Recorded at Third Man Studio in Nashville, TN, the album was produced by The Raconteurs and engineered by Joshua V. Smith. Longtime friends and musical collaborators helped make HELP US STRANGER, including keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Dean Fertita (The Dead Weather, Queens of the Stone Age) and Lillie Mae Rische and her sister Scarlett Rische. The album was mixed by Vance Powell and The Raconteurs at Blackbird Studios in Nashville.
"It doesn't feel like that long since the group's sophomore set because the ease with which they fall into these songs, picking up where they left off on 2008's Consolers Of The Lonely, shows the four piece has a connection that may transcend the music. From the throbbing Led Zeppelin-styled hard rock of 'Don't Bother Me' (complete with short drum solo), to the following Elton John/10cc influenced piano ballad 'Shine The Light On Me' and the riff-rawk driven 'What's Yours is Mine,' these four guys play together like a well-oiled machine, not one that has been idle for a decade. Sure, Jack White is a busy guy. But based on the quality of the music he makes with his Raconteurs buddies on Help Us Stranger, here's hoping he won't go another ten years before delivering its follow-up." - American Songwriter, 4/5
"There's nothing that White and Benson have cooked up on Help Me Stranger that sounds like genre-reliant clock-punching; instead, they make playing around in the classic-rock sandbox sound like so much fun that you have to wonder why it took them eleven years to get back in the habit together. Hopefully, next time around they'll make a point of getting together again sooner." - Stereogum
"Always Jack White's most melodic project, his partnership with Brendan Benson's bubblegum pop and the Greenhornes rhythm section makes for a bracingly addictive listen. Opening with the stabbing guitar lines of 'Bored And Razed' the record plunges into ragged acoustic strut on near title cut 'Help Me Stranger' before seguing into the pensive, palatial Benson-sung 'Only Child'. Picking up exactly where they left off, The Raconteurs' denim-clad early '70s reference points are in check, delivered in gleeful, exuberant, electrifying fashion. 'Sunday Driver' is a Led Zep stomper, while heavy duty Donovan cover 'Hey Gyp' is a barn-storming freakbeat fuzz-out. 'What's Yours Is Mine' is a sleazy Deep Purple workout aided by a curious cowbell, but closer 'Thoughts And Prayers' is a violin-aided hoedown worthy of a place on Led Zeppelin III. Its gloriously unkempt charm seems to sum up the album as a whole - purely and simply the sound of a group of musicians having the absolute time of their lives." - ClashMusic.com, 8/10
Features:
• Vinyl LP
• Pressed in Detroit
Selections:
Side A:
1. Bored And Razed
2. Help Me Stranger
3. Only Child
4. Don't Bother Me
5. Shine The Light On Me
6. Somedays (I Don't Feel Like Trying)
Side B:
7. Hey Gyp (Dig The Slowness)
8. Sunday Driver
9. Now That You're Gone
10. Live A Lie
11. What's Yours Is Mine
12. Thoughts And Prayers
