Jack White has done it again with his latest album, ‘Frozen Charlotte’, a heavy and blazingly worthy followup to his critically acclaimed ‘No Name’ record. The first question on most fans’ minds is whether ‘Frozen Charlotte’ is effectively a ‘No Name 2.0’, and the answer is a resounding yes. White’s solo career has seen him veering between acoustically oriented efforts and pure freakazoid workouts, but ‘No Name’ was a game-changer, satisfying approximately 99.2% of the fan base with a formula that amounted to something like ‘the White Stripes, but beefier and brawnier’. Rarely has a standom been more primed to say, ‘Please, sir, may we have another.

To cut to the chase: Yes! ‘Frozen Charlotte’ feels like a sequel… a sequel people actually asked for. It couldn’t play much more like one if White had set to work on this one the day after sessions for ‘No Name’ ended, even if we know that’s not exactly how or when it went down. Glory, hallelujah: You may now kiss the spinoff.

The sense of musical continuity is a welcome thing for fans who wanted to hear White keep mining that same vein of intricate/blowhard blues-rock. But listen beneath the surface of all that mind-blowing busywork and some differences do become apparent — more so in his attitude than the arrangements. Plainly put, Jack White is pissed. As in, really pissed, about something. Admittedly, sometimes it can be hard to tell: Even at his most mirthful or joyous, he has a way of sounding like he’s in a state of agitation. So, sure, his music already sounded furious, in fundamentally playful records like ‘No Name’ and ‘Boarding House Reach’. But with ‘Frozen Charlotte’, it’s as if his psyche caught up. Whatever brought it on, it’s not bad for the music, which is as compelling as it is pummeling. He’s angry, and if anything, that’s just going to make us more mad about the boy.

What’s he got to be upset about? Well, some of the same things that have stirred the fury of rockers since the dawn of time — namely: a girl who has done him wrong, an inscrutable God, and the prying eyes of nosy outsiders. White alternates vexing existential questions about the very nature of existence (starting with the first single, ‘G.O.D. and the Broken Ribs’) with smaller-picture complaints about a relationship that has gone very, very awry (‘You’ll Never Fix Me’). The settings range from the Garden of Eden to his own kitchen, which is invoked twice in this album as a place where unpleasant things happen. In other words, the Sturm und Drang is both cosmic and domestic. But wherever the sense of chaos is coming from, he is going to make it the stuff of moshpits, whether he is performing these songs out on the road or just inspiring you to bounce off of the walls of your own living space.

As promised, his all comes out in the form of deliriously relentless rock ‘n’ roll, released in short, cathartic bursts. Among the 13 songs here, only one is longer than four minutes, and several hover around the two-and-a-half-minute mark. But White crams so much into every number, none of them feel nearly that compact. It’s like each one is as filling as a rich dessert… if a rich dessert were also capable of delivering powerful body blows.

Some songs slam right out of the gate, like ‘You’ll Never Fix Me’, which has White’s guitar pounding the listener with jackhammer quarter notes while Keeler offers contrastingly fluid drum fills. Not everything starts at an 11. ‘I Can’t Believe What I’m Hearing’ begins with a nice, basic thump — not an icky one at all — before uncovering the album’s one ‘pretty’ chorus, which is to say, something you could imagine on a Ranconteurs record. And so it goes: the songs relent long enough to give just a moment’s rest, and then get in your face again, like well-designed carnival rides that just happen to offer bonus emotional content.

Occasionally White gets in some social commentary, although less than you might guess from his Instagram. ‘Making Contact’ morphs into the phrase ‘making content’ and goes on to deliver the album’s wildest and silliest rhyme: ‘Like JP Morgan or Rockefeller / Tell the world they shouldn’t care bout salmonella.’ Or maybe that honor should be reserved for ‘Nobody Knows’, a song themed around agnosticism, which includes this classic couplet: ‘Well, so is God making fun of us?… / You and me, Isaac, Albert, Pythagoras.’ And this one: ‘From Neanderthals to the Denisovans… / Are the homosapiens the future aliens?’ There is welcome comic relief of that sort in White being able joke around with his wordplay a little when he’s pondering the nature of the universe. Because when it comes to the other songs that deal with affairs closer to the heart, he seems as serious as a heart attack.

There is an elephant in the room here, if you believe that most rock ‘n’ roll is about rebellion and nonconformity. But with ‘Frozen Charlotte’, Jack White is rebelling against the very idea of rebellion itself, embracing a more introspective and emotionally honest approach to his music. It’s a bold move, but one that pays off in spades. ‘Frozen Charlotte’ is a record that will leave you breathless, sweaty, and maybe even a little bit broken. But it’s also a record that will leave you wanting more, and that’s the highest praise I can give it.