Icky Thump

by

The White Stripes

Edit

It's hard not to think that Jack White has developed something of an ego--after all, when music critics call you a genius for anything as small as slapping an organ around a bit, it must be hard not to get a little bit of a God complex.

But if he has, he has not let it diffuse the element of play and seeming improvisation that brings the White Stripes sound together. The White Stripes is where Jack White is at the height of his powers. His brief excursion into The Raconteurs with Broken Boy Soldiers felt too constricted and lacking energy, and in other projects he didn't sound as though he was having all that much fun. Many regard Get Behind Me Satan as dark White Stripes, but I don't go along with that diagnosis--there are way too many fluctuations about that disc even that keeps me from thinking that Jack and Meg were getting too dour during that recording session.

With rock 'n' roll creature Meg White, the music becomes music again, playing with all types of sounds and styles and maybe even poking a little fun at musical schools that we may take a little too seriously. This IS rock, after all, and if we can end "I'm Slowly Turning Into You" with a repetitive La chorus, what the hell? Why not? "Rag and Bone" is an exquisite track with its shout-outs as though one is listening in on take 1, and the plain out noise assault of the the title track lets you know that you're not in for the the old heavy-yet-light-since-there-are-only-two-of-them bluesiness of The White Stripes, but a pair who have spread their sound out wider and into something of a full arc. The snideness of "You Just Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told)," and the garage-can twanginess into submarine assault with "Catch Hell Blues"--every song works at being its own tone poem, sounding at times like a radio dial flipping about to give one snatches of different styles and stations (that is, in the days when you could tell one radio station from another).

But, just in case you thought that the Stripes might have left behind their heavy blues influence, they give you that purity of back-porch blues with "Effect and Cause." I love this playfulness about them, their willingness to explore anything (even if it's something they've explored before) if the song leads them to it.

This album isn't the profound and unannounced classic that De Stijl is, but it's solid White Stripes stuff--which is to say that it's diverse, imaginative, entertaining on both sides of the speaker, and a foot-stomping good time.

Rock on.