Give it up for Jack White and his Luddite ways: The Raconteurs—a.k.a. the band he seems to prefer playing in over The White Stripes—like Radiohead before it, is battling the Internet pirates and leaks by releasing an album with no warning. (Big rock releases, for the record, are often completely finished 4-8 months before they hit stores.)
Consolers Of The Lonely will be released March 25 on all formats, vinyl, digital, smoke signal, etc. Here are some choice quotes from the press release, hot off the Internet presses:
"The album was mastered and completed in the first week of March. It was then taken immediately to a vinyl pressing plant. Then to a CD pressing plant. Then preparations to sell it digitally began. March 25th became the soonest date to have it available in EVERY FORMAT AT ONCE. The band have done no interviews or advertisements for this record before this announcement. The purpose: to get the album to the fans as soon as possible and as we promised. We wanted to get this record to fans, the press, radio, etc., all at the EXACT SAME TIME so that no one has an upper hand on anyone else regarding it's availability, reception or perception."
(The it's vs. its mistake belongs to the press release, not me.)
"The band are also not releasing any version of this record that contains bonus tracks. Musically this album will be the same as the band created it no matter what format it is purchased in (The sound quality of each format however, is a different story. The Raconteurs recommend hearing it on vinyl, but the choice is of course up to the listener)."
So there you have it. Look for a review here sometime after the release, unless we can get ourselves a sweet 120kbps leak first!