Jack White's new album Frozen Charlotte arrives as one of the most anticipated rock records of the year, and according to a review by Variety, it largely delivers on that expectation.
The album follows White's widely praised 2024 release No Name, which Variety described as one of the great modern rock and roll records. That album satisfied what the publication called approximately 99.2 percent of the fan base with a sound compared to the White Stripes, but beefier and brawnier. Frozen Charlotte picks up where No Name left off, and Variety says the sense of continuity is a welcome thing for fans who wanted to hear White keep mining that same vein of intricate blues-rock.
What separates the two records, according to the review, is not the arrangements but White's attitude. The album finds him working through anger, whether over a relationship gone wrong, existential questions about God, or the intrusion of outside observers into his private life. The review notes that his music already sounded furious on earlier records, but with Frozen Charlotte, it feels like his psyche has caught up to the music.
The album opens with the first single, "G.O.D. and the Broken Ribs," which tackles vexing existential questions. A track called "You'll Never Fix Me" deals with a relationship that has gone very wrong. The settings across the album range, in Variety's description, from the Garden of Eden to White's own kitchen, which appears twice as a place where unpleasant things happen. The review describes the overall emotional scope as both cosmic and domestic.
Variety writes that whatever brought on the anger, it is not bad for the music, which is described as compelling and pummeling in equal measure. The album releases its energy in short, cathartic bursts of what the review calls deliriously relentless rock and roll.
The release comes during a strong stretch for legacy rock acts. Aliens, one of James Cameron's best-known films, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and Terminator 2 its 35th, keeping Cameron's name in circulation at the same time White's is generating new conversation in music.
White has spent parts of his solo career bouncing between acoustic-oriented work and more experimental material, drawing mixed reactions. No Name signaled a return to form that fans embraced, and Frozen Charlotte appears designed to hold that ground rather than abandon it.
