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We may not have gotten a new Kendrick Lamar album tonight (it’s instead coming next week), but here’s a nice substitute: Jack White has unveiled a surprise new single called “Battle Cry”.
Clocking in at two and a half minutes, it’s your prototypical Jack White rock anthem brimming with gnarly-as-fuck guitar licks. However, aside from a few chants, its strictly an instrumental.
“Battle Cry” was released on Friday without much fanfare, and at the moment it’s unclear whether it’s a one-off track or part of a larger project. Stream it below.
Update: “Battle Cry” was written specifically for a new promotional film from sporting good company Warstic, of which White is a co-owner. White himself also appears in the film alongside MLB all-star Ian Kinsler, which you watch below. “Battle Cry” will also be released on limited edition, one-sided, gold colored 7-inch vinyl for Record Store Day 2017 (April 22nd).
Stream the song in its entirety via Apple Music or Spotify:
In a recent interview with the New Yorker, White revealed that he was working on new music. He’s set up shop in a small Nashville apartment, where he records on “a reel-to-reel tape recorder that he bought when he was fourteen with money he made mowing lawns.” He’s “going to try to write songs where I can’t be heard by the next-door neighbor. And I want to write like Michael Jackson would write — instead of writing parts on the instruments or humming melodies, you think of them. To do everything in my head and to do it in silence and use only one room.” White reportedly spends “several hours a day” crafting in this space.
White’s last solo album came in the form of 2014’s Lazaretto. Last year, he released an acoustic rarities compilation and contributed to Beyoncé’s Lemonade.
