They say that variety is the spice of life, but if anything can be said about Jack White’s new album, it’s that this is not always the case. His new album Boarding House Reach has a hand in nearly every genre to create his own unique sound. You can see parts of hip-hop, jazz, psychedelic rock, and funk throughout this album. The problem is that this variety becomes too confusing with the addition of more and more conflicting musical elements. His songs Over and Over and Over and Corporation both start off with an extremely tight and polished blues-rock feel that we all remember but become chaotic later in the song with the additions of funk keyboards, bongos, and vocal harmonies. In Corporation, he adds intermittent vocals that are out of time and don’t really add up coupled with vocal screeches meant to sound like guitar bends. All of this put together results in something very eclectic and nearly inaccessible. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be feeling or why.

It avoids the pitfall of being too simple and boring but walks headlong into the issue of being too unpredictable. There’s something to be said for surprising the listener and I found myself genuinely excited about not knowing where many of these songs on the album would go when they began. However, this quickly wore off towards the end. Many of his songs added elements that either undercut what he had already established earlier in the song or made no sense whatsoever and sounded like they didn’t belong. In Ice Station Zebra, he begins with something that sounds vaguely like 90’s hip-hop, but then he cuts in with strange interludes of jazz piano chords and funk keyboard riffs. As a result, these songs got harder and harder to listen too as the devolved into random parts from different genres that were put together for no apparent reason.

I never found a moment that felt like the climax to a song. Usually songs build up to the final chorus and you realized you’ve arrived, but all he did was add random harmonies and instruments until it petered out. Then there’s strange songs like Abulia and Akrasia that sound just plain weird. It’s like I’m listening to a convoluted stream of consciousness set to wispy classical music. He then punctuates this with the all too disappointing “can I please have a cup of tea.” Overall, this strange combination of genres and lack of apparent direction or goal makes it seem like Jack White is having an identity crisis and has only left me confused.