The Raconteurs: Broken Boy Soldier

Herald rating: * * * *

Three-quarters of the Raconteurs were at the Auckland Big Day Out this year - just in different bands. And listening to this, the infectious debut of the Detroit supergroup, you might wish they'd swapped the White Stripes' headline grand indulgence for a set by this, Jack White's other band.

The Raconteurs are White, the rhythm section of BDO newbies the Greenhornes, along with Brendan Benson as the band's possible odd man out, given his witty sing-songwriter past with powerpop and alt-country leanings.

Together, they can sound like a fleshed-out and rhythmically-unchallenged White Stripes. White's guitar and voice in this setting makes this resound with echoes of Led Zeppelin - he sounds more Robert Plant than ever on the modal title song and the lyrically absurd Intimate Secretary.

Benson stamps his more relaxed pop-minded mark on the warm, country-ish Together and the Beatlesque Yellow Son and sometimes the rock reference-ometer is reading "Thin Lizzy" for those twin lead lines and, even better, "Cheap Trick" .

And from the pop-smart opener Steady As She Goes, with its purloined Joe Jackson bassline, through to the swamp creature finale Blue Veins, it's all over in just 10 songs and 30-plus minutes, its brevity just adding to its warped poprock vitality.

Label: Shock