Some artists refuse to let themselves be pigeon-holed by musical genres. Tom Freund is one of these artists. The former bassist for the Alt Country outfit The Silos keeps good company too—often collaborating with Ben Harper, who lends a guest vocal on the opening track “Angel Eyes”. “Angel Eyes” is a love song to life in L.A. It speaks of the city and her resilience. Despite reoccurring fires and earthquakes that plague the city there’s always a party somewhere. This track set the mood and a theme for the entire album.

Often when an album is released after more than a year and a half of anticipation, the payoff is lackluster, but Lazaretto lives up to the hype. This is Jack White’s second solo release, the follow up to 2012’s Blunderbuss (which was named the top album of that year by Drunk Monkeys). Like with Blunderbuss, he continues to move farther away from the minimalist approach that defined his work with The White Stripes and The Dead Weather.