Nothony Reviewtano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time...

No. No. No. No. This is not a review of Jack White's No Name.

Jack White is a singer and a songwriter and producer. The man over at Third Man Records. He's a modern rock legend, a guitarist extraordinaire who I am not reviewing.

He's back, which I don't know and I'm not aware of. Maybe I would be if I were reviewing him in this, but I'm not. But since his career began to take off in the 2000s as one-half of The White Stripes, he has been a very busy bee, always creating, collaborating, building the Jack White and Third Man Records brand. The man has truly accomplished more in 20 years than some artists and bands do in twice that time with twice the album sales.

Despite all that commercial success, he continues to be an artist who does things on his own terms, especially in this current act of his career with his last couple of releases, the extremely experimental and sometimes absurd boarding house "Breach", for one, as well as the one, two punch of albums he put out back in 2022, the record of low-key, sometimes, acoustic ballads, as well as high distortion garage rock Ragers that were on Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive.

This new record, which I am not reviewing. No, absolutely not. No review, No Name, not even a proper label on this thing. I mean, it's white. It's white. It's completely white. It's even white over here. It's totally blank. What is there even to talk about? This new record is essentially another surprise up Jack's sleeve because he's the goddamn Willy Wanker of music at this point.

This No Name record was released without much in the way of any tease, any fanfare, no big single, no what you could say is a proper album rollout.I first caught wind of it through people who are Jack White fans telling me that it was being sold exclusively at the Third Man Records store, vinyl only. But now the entire thing is finally out on streaming and in my hand.

It's funny that this record was rolled out in the way that it is because, esthetically speaking, I feel like it's exactly the thing that Jack White's more or difficult to please fans have been begging him to do for years. Just give us some raw, organic, ballsy blues and garage rock with loud guitars, loud drums, a lot of simplicity, very blunt, very direct, just like in the wildest days of the White Stripes. Like first album era White Stripes, but then add to it the finesse and knack for songwriting and guitar tone wizardry that Jack White picked up on and just got a better grasp of later in his career.

In concept, this thing for a fan of Jack's music, regardless of the era, almost sounds too good to be true, because really, how many artists have tried to recapture an older, maybe more artistically revered era of their career only for their attempts to do so, to fall flat on their face, just leading to mostly awkward results that pale in comparison to what they're attempting to do.

In the case of No Name, it's actually no bullshit. We have 13 blazing tracks on this thing that are all just relentless, catchy, and fun. Screaming riffs, big drum beats from Patrick Kieler of Afghan Wigs and, of course, The Raconteurs fame. It's very no-mus, no-fuss, guitars, drums, vocals, with a bit of layers coming in the form of maybe a few keys, guitar solos, some embellishments and vocal harmonies, but even with those details.

The mixes on this record are pretty aggressive. They're pretty distorted, not high gloss, not super clean, nothing like that. It doesn't have any of that extra stuff that you might have gotten out of some of Jack's more cleanly or ambitiously produced projects over the years because it doesn't really need any of that stuff.

We're not getting a whole lot of wild genre experiments on this thing either. It really truly is Jack going back to basics and sounding amazing in the process. I mean, the opening track alone makes it pretty clear what he is going to be going for on this record. Lots of blaring blues and garage guitar licks and riffs with Jack's voice sounding absolutely vicious on top of them, delivering lyrics that might actually be dealing in his tendency to go against the music industry grain like I was talking about earlier, as there are mentions on this track of being owned, being detrowned, selling out, a percentage of the profit being taken.

It is a hard as nails start to this LP that somehow gets even harder on the following track, "Bless Yourself", which ties into another major theme of this album, and that is God and spirituality. The drums and guitar riffs on this track get even heavier and chunkier, with Jack's words getting louder, too, talking about 'If God's busy, you might as well bless yourself.' Also, further into the track, too, saying, 'If you're a cop, arrest yourself.' I guess even if Jack's album covers are blue, he's not backing the blue.

There's also a sick bridge on this track, too, that not only has a really distinct melody to it in contrast to the entire track, but he's going through these vocal passages that are ranting, and he's almost like undercutting the premise of his own points on the track in a way that seems like a big put on. It's highly entertaining.

Following this, "That's How I'm Feeling", is another garage rock revival ranger with steady, quirky verses, one of which has these funny little phone dial tone sound effects going on in the background, given Jack's lyrics at the time. These verse bits kick off into some of the loudest choruses on the entire record. The loud, soft, dynamic is pulled off perfectly with this track.

Then the record suddenly gets a little bit dramatic on the following "It's Rough on Rats", which comparatively is not that much more theatrical than everything else here. I mean, the raw kick-ass performances are still really what sells the track and are the main priority. But still, it does provide a bit of versatility with Jack, really yucking it up on the vocal end and singing about the further deterioration of the state of the world and how if it's rough on people at the very bottom of the food chain, it must be roughest on the rats.

A lot of the religious themes come back on the track "Archbishop Harold Holmes", or at least I would bring that up if I was reviewing this album, which I'm not. No, this is not a review, so I'm not going to comment on the searing garage rock riffs on this track and the way that Jack madly rambles over them like he's some religious zealot. Maybe I have an opinion on that of some sort. You'll never know, though. Or maybe you will because it does feel a bit like a late-era White Stripes track and how narrative and theatrical it's trying to be. It does drag on a bit, but it's still not super hokey or anything like that. The riffs, the beats, the aggression of it all, that's really what still takes.

Following this, we have pure lofi garage punk mayhem on "Bombing Out". "What's the Rumpus?" sees Jack one more time, plugging back into the music industry commentary a bit. But instrumentally speaking, he is really plugging into something here, that very pure, simple, anthemic, loud, aggressive rock magic that made tracks like "7 Nation Army" as good as they are, especially with those big anthemic 'O, O, O, O, O's'. He continues to be on fire in this tracklist on "Tonight (Was A Long Time Ago)".

He's just seemingly unstoppable with these riffs and choruses. They're just going off. I don't know why is he making an album like this now of all times? Just to prove he can still do it? Like, 'Screw you guys. Here's my random no-title album that some among you have been begging for for years, and I'm just going to do it just to show you. Look, I haven't lost it! Look at me. Look at me!' I don't know. Either way, it's working. The really awesome, bold, and instantaneously catchy, weird slide blues guitar melodies on "Underground" are also a major highlight.

Meanwhile, "Number One With A Bullet" sounds like if you took early 2000s white stripes, but had them write a Death From Above 1979 song, and it was awesome. Because again, this record really does feel like it's throwing it back to that super minimal duo era of rudimentary underground rock, and it's just doing it so good. It's doing it so good. We've been missing this.

Jack still keeps just delivering great tracks on the back end of this thing, "Missionary", being another one of them, which I think, writing-wise, is one of the most raw, unhinged, and suggestive songs he's ever released. I mean, yeah, the song is very much about what it's clearly about. 'You're going to miss me.' Again, it's very suggestive with Jack throwing in bits of manic laughter in the middle of his lyrics, laughing like a psycho. 'I'm going to grow on you like an apple seed / I'm everything that you need.' Jack, you're a madman. He also goes on later into the track to admit he's an affection addict. Jack White. What a hoe.

We also have a very moody but fitting closer on the record as well that I think goes over great. Outside of a couple of tracks pailing in comparison to others and "Archbishop", dragging a little bit, I feel like this is a stellar album from Jack. He's not reinventing the wheel. For sure, a lot of fans are going to look at this and probably not be maybe as impressed with it because it's going to feel like old-school White Stripes, which due to various biases and nostalgia, in their minds, it may not hold a candle to. But in terms of just raw performance, simple but effective writing, fiery and explosive mixes on in everything you need and nothing you don't type rock album that is backed with attitude.

No Name really does give you everything that you could possibly want. I mean, if this was a review, which it's not, it's very much not a review. No review here. I could see myself to maybe saying this album is like a decent 9, light a decent 9.

But because this is not a review, I don't think I'm able to do that. The world is just going to have to live without knowing the truth about how I feel about this album because this is not reviewing it.

It's not a review. No, not doing it. So there you go.

Anthony Fantano. Jack White. Forever.

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