Jack White: Entering Heaven Alive (Third Man/bandcamp)

When considering Jack White's often demanding album Fear of the Dawn in April we noted it was the first installment of a paired release, Entering Heaven Alive completing what could be seen as a double album.

But where Fear of the Dawn was a tumultuous and disruptive collection of heavy rock, hip-hop and dubby funk-rock, Entering Heaven Alive is a much more muted affair from the newly married White.

Acoustic guitar, piano and thoughtful meditations on love, self-doubt and mortality arrive with echoes of Led Zeppelin's Anglo-folk ballads (without the Tolkien) filtering through on All Along the Way (“I'll do the best I can . . we'll say the things that lovers often do”) and Love is Selfish (“always crying 'me me me' ”).

I've Got You Surrounded (With My Love) is a subtle and addictive slice of casual funk-lite with White's buzzing guitar and jazz piano from Quincy McCrary, Queen of the Bees (“I wanna hold you, like a sloth hugs a tree. 'Cause I crave you, like a glass needs wine”) has a jaunty lope and Please God Don't Tell Anyone (“all the idiot things that I've done”) could be Planet Waves-era Dylan.

The final track with country fiddle by Fats Kaplin is Taking Me Back (Gently), a

sprightly remake of the noisy metal-edge opener on Fear of the Dawn, thereby closing the circle.

Entering Heaven Alive is the most emotionally revealing, sometimes playful and consistently quiet album in the catalogue of the former White Stripe, Raconteur and Dead Weather man, and here completes a game of two very different halves.

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There are reviews, overviews and an interview with Jack White at Elsewhere starting here. 

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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here.