The Raconteurs — Consolers Of The Lonely

It took me until the halfway mark of The Raconteurs' second album to figure it all out. It was the Brendan Benson-led "Many Shades Of Black," to be exact.

The song is a peculiarly urgent ballad with horns and a sharp solo. What struck me, though, was Benson's voice. It seemed to hint at both April Wine's Myles Goodwyn and Foreigner's Lou Gramm. And that's not meant to be an insult. That's when I cracked The Raconteurs code.

See, we now have two generations of internet music kids who've never been force-fed classic rock radio and instead have been weaned exclusively on blogs essaying on the merits of Kid A and Modest Mouse. To them, every Zep-ish guitar lick, power chord and acoustic breakdown is like some crazy, new scientific shit. It all works though because where us old fucks are tweaking here on Bad Company flashbacks, the youngins figure it's some wicked, new trip.

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