Jack White extends Reach, mixes styles on eclectic disc

B+ Jack White Boarding House Reach Third Man/Columbia

Jack White’s third solo album assembles bits of rock, blues, jazz, funk, synth pop, prog rock, country and spoken word into fascinating experiments that sound like Kanye West crossed with Radiohead or Merle Haggard joining Depeche Mode. However, White makes nearly all of it work. He has created ambition you can dance to, spoken word poetry that rocks.

Maybe it’s no surprise that the guy who helped Beyonce go country or Loretta Lynn find a hard-rocking comeback has decided to do some genre-crossing of its own.

But that doesn’t come close to explaining “Corporation,” which The cover of Jack White’s Boarding House Reach

starts out as a funk jam studded with Led Zeppelin-like riffs for three minutes before flowing into a spoken-word rant. “I’m thinking about starting a corporation,” White says like a preacher at Sunday services. “Who’s with me? Nowadays, that’s how you get adulation.”

In “Ice Station Zero,” he moves from rapping like Will Smith in “Parents Just Don’t Understand” to something more Beck-like.

Even when White scales back, he is still pushing boundaries. “What’s Done Is Done” seems like a country weeper, but it’s layered over some wobbly synths that gives it a dreamlike quality, as it devolves into a murderous threat. “Connected by Love” may sound traditional in comparison, but its intricacies still make it drift from latter-day White Stripes to a bit of Leonard Cohen-like call-andresponse.

In the hands of a lesser musician, all these ambitions would be impossible to corral, but White bends them to his will, building Boarding House Reach into something uniquely beautiful.

Hot tracks: “Ice Station Zero,” “Connected by Love,” “What’s Done Is Done” — GLENN GAMBOA Newsday (TNS)

A- Brandi Carlile By the Way, I Forgive You Elektra

The title of Brandi Carlile’s new album is a line that recurs throughout the opening track, “Every Time I Hear That Song.” It’s addressed to an ex-lover, and it contains sadness and regret and tenderness, but also a touch of getting-the-last-laugh vindication. It’s full-blooded, emotionally nuanced, and true to life, and it sets the tone for the rest of this gripping set.

“Whatever You Do” is a stark portrait of someone caught between devotion and independence — “I love you whatever you do, but I’ve got a life to live

too” — while “The Mother” is an unabashed celebration of renewal and redemption brought on by motherhood. “Sugartooth” is a wrenching portrayal of an addict, with a strong strain of empathy that also runs through “The Joke” and maybe “Fulton County Jane Doe.” A chilling ambiguity underpins the latter — for all the sweet understanding of “Fulton County Jane” expressed by the singer, could she actually be dead, and did the singer kill her?

Carlile has worked with big-name producers before in T Bone Burnett and Rick Rubin, and here she teams with one of Nashville’s hottest right now, Dave Cobb, as well as Shooter Jennings. The music incorporates country, folk, rock, and pop, and even when strings are employed, as they often are, the arrangements remain terse and spare, sharpening the focus on Carlile and her songs.

“I don’t always choose to stay on the sunny side,” Carlile warns on “Harder to Forgive.” That’s true, but it’s her ability to convey so many shades of emotion that makes her work here so powerful.

Hot tracks: “Every Time I Hear That Song,” “Whatever You Do,” “Sugartooth,” “The Joke” — NICK CRISTIANO The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)

B Ruben Studdard Ruben Sings Luther SEG Music

It’s one of those gone-butnot-forgotten things: the music of Luther Vandross. The velvety tenor possessed a saxophone’s subtone nuance, an operatic theatricality, dynamics for days and a deep abiding soulfulness that made his penned-and-produced work sublime. Vandross’ wall-shaking background vocals enriched all whose albums (including Chic, David Bowie, Diana Ross) he graced.

When he died in 2005, Vandross left a void never to be filled. Only a singer with similar power and range, such as Ruben Studdard, could come close.

The American Idol Season Two winner has been nicknamed the “Velvet Teddy Bear.” Studdard is comparable to Vandross in physical size and pipes and has covered Vandross-associated tunes such as Leon Russell’s “Superstar” since his start.

For this full-on lush-andfunky tribute, Studdard smartly doesn’t copy Vandross’ runs, slides, or scats. The up-tempo “Bad Boy”/“Having a Party” and the coolly complex “Never Too Much” (both written or co-written by Vandross) could have appeared as part of Studdard’s own slick R&B catalog, as could a soaring “Here and Now.” That doesn’t mean Studdard avoids reminiscing or picking up Vandross’ tics (he toured as Fats Waller in a theatrical revival of Ain’t Misbehavin’ and knows what to borrow to complete an artist’s portrait), and he veers close to Vandross’ simmer on the pensive “A House Is Not a Home.”

That, however, is exactly what you want from a great tribute — soulful things old, new, borrowed, and blue.

Hot tracks: “Never Too Much,” “A House Is Not a Home,” “Bad Boy/Having a Party” — A.D. AMOROSI The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)