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Mar 23, 2018"Corporation" and "Ice Station Zebra," the two funkiest numbers here, illustrate this with their precise grooves, but even the self-consciously weird interludes show this same level of exactitude. While that keeps Boarding House Reach somewhat in a straitjacket, it also makes it a fascinating listen, because it's a document of a control freak anxious to get loose.
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Mar 15, 2018In many ways, this is as radical, experimental and mind-expanding of a pop album as you’re likely to hear anytime soon, let alone by a festival headlining artist.
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Mar 21, 2018White does pretty much everything except what fans have learned to expect from him. It’s an ambitious, dizzying, and sometimes challenging listen, but overall makes for one of the most maniacally creative albums of the year.
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Mar 19, 2018Boarding House Reach is easily one of the most layered and compelling releases of 2018, which furthers White’s legacy as one of the few remaining mavericks in music.
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Mar 28, 2018White’s reverence for classic music of the past is still a big part of who is he here; he’s just shifting focus with a more manic and multi-faceted approach. That’s not weird. That’s smart.
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Mar 23, 2018It’s weird and brilliant, and anything but regressive.
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Mar 26, 2018It’s esoteric and unsettling, because he’s done trying to reason with us.
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Mar 16, 2018Even when an experiment fails, it does so in intriguing and unpredictable ways.
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MagnetApr 17, 2018What is by some distance the weirdest, wildest White we've yet encountered on record. [No. 150, p.60]
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MojoMar 13, 2018This is an album restless in its search for the new, the sound of White's reinvention in progress, scorching the Earth in anticipation of what might follow. If it misfires on occasion, it's certainly never dull. And if it never quite reaches its destination, it's still quite a ride. [Apr 2018, p.84]
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Mar 23, 2018In Boarding House Reach White gives himself a free hand, and the result is a more experimental and surprising work.
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Mar 22, 2018That he’s produced such a full, lush sounding thing packed with personality and life is impressive--but not surprising.
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Apr 18, 2018Boarding House Reach isn’t the easiest of listens, and at times sounds like an over-excited White has just pressed 'record' and let his absurdity run amok. However, its strong moments just about outnumber the less appealing ones, and White’s own creative juices are still being harvested in abundance.
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Mar 23, 2018White’s yelps and screams, reverb, synth and jittery guitar riffs could be more pleasant or cohesive, but that’s not White’s style, especially not on this record. Piling it all on seems to be the point he’s trying to make--this sense of being overwhelmed, constantly, at the hands of technology.
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Mar 23, 2018His latest is his first true departure, and the unfamiliarity is at once a challenge to absorb and also a fascinating turnabout from an artist who is demonstrating that he is more willing--and able--than most to subvert the expectations he’s created for himself.
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Mar 23, 2018Boarding House Reach is a long, bewildering slog studded with these moments, which seem to be directly antagonizing you.
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Mar 22, 2018The misfires are few and far between. Boarding House Reach may be a hard pill to swallow, but it's rarely boring and without a doubt the most far-reaching, experimental collection of songs in White's ample discography.
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Mar 23, 2018Jack White missed, but in the best possible way. As weak as this record is, its extremely entertaining.
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Q MagazineMar 13, 2018There's nothing here likely to be adopted as a stadium chant, but in its tethered imagination, Boarding House Reach is the most surprising and eccentric record White's made. [May 2018, p.110]
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Mar 29, 2018Boarding House is schizophrenic in the extreme. Despite being spawned in said room, later work has over-egged the pudding. While certain sections of songs work, they’re quickly thrown back into a maelstrom of hip-hop drums, Oh Sees squawks, fine gospel vocals from The McCrary Sisters and vintage synths.
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Mar 23, 2018Mostly White sounds like a scrappy, abstract-leaning '80s-style battle rhymer who probably didn't win a lot of battles. Elsewhere, experimental detours dead-end: "Everything You've Ever Learned" feels like aimless twaddle with newly-unboxed digital toys. But at its best, the spirit of freaky free-play is thrilling and refreshing, a worthy end unto itself.
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Mar 13, 2018A postmodern assault of freaked-out sonic ataxia, it's messy, wildly uneven, and at times even close to unlistenable, but its sheer audacity makes it utterly intriguing.
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Mar 23, 2018The results don’t resemble the King’s hits nearly as much as Prince’s demos.
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Mar 22, 2018Boarding House Reach holds together as a complete piece. The songs complement each other, speaking to the restlessness and reluctance of an artist who’s spent the last decade or so successfully transforming himself into a brand.
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Mar 22, 2018Boarding House Reach resembles less a coherent album than a miscellany of ideas--or a collection of B-sides, with all the good and bad that entails.
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Mar 22, 2018Overall, it’s an entertaining, multifaceted set, albeit weakened by a tendency to pursue slim ideas and dead-end notions.
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Mar 13, 2018Boarding House Reach's overall flow--conceptually and creatively--is at times unsure and brilliant at once. This is no album of the year contender, nor will it rank too highly on White's saggish discography. Instead, it's thirteen songs of creative madness.
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Mar 23, 2018There is ultimately something sketchy about Boarding House Reach, pulling in so many directions that it suggests rough drafts for more fully formed work to come. But for all that, there are so many rich ingredients in the mix, even misophones should find something to soothe their troubled ears.
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UncutMar 19, 2018A sometimes mystifying but often inspired work. [May 2018, p.22]
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Mar 22, 2018Despite all the bluster, there's not a lot actually happening on this album. Its songs are collages of ideas that sound great in 10-second chunks but refuse to settle, shifting from fiery riffs to spoken word passages to jazz piano detours. At first, this restlessness has a mad-scientist charm to it but it quickly becomes tiresome.
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Mar 30, 2018On Boarding House Reach, he goes well out of his way to re-scatter the puzzle, but it’s a divine enough mess.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 97 out of 129
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Mixed: 18 out of 129
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Negative: 14 out of 129
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Mar 23, 2018
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Mar 26, 2018
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Mar 23, 2018