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A solid 10 years into the mix as a band and the mythology of the White Stripes has completely taken hold: the “family members or former lovers” history of Jack and Meg White; the blood, bone and black wardrobe colors; and the duo’s adherence to the number “3,” from Jumpin’ Jack’s arrangements to his signature in the liner notes of the duo’s latest record. Everyone that has ever written about the Stripes wants to be the first to crack Jack’s code. Or be the first to make Meg speak without her “big brother” defending her drumming chops.
 The White Stripes dress up their old tricks on their brassy, bold new record, Icky Thump. |
So, to paraphrase W.B. Yeats—something Jack does to grand effect on the scrapheap-as-mission statement “Rag and Bone”—what can the Stripes do but enumerate old themes? “Meg, look at this place,” Jack calls from across the mental thrift store where he mines for all of his best secondhand tunes. “This place is like a mansion! It’s like a mansion! Look at all this stuff!” In comes Jack’s barbed riff and Meg’s one-size-fits-all drumming and we’re off on a tune as catchy as “Fell In Love With A Girl,” but with the shape-shifting feel of a live Stripes gig.
“Stuff” is right: Where the Stripes’ last record (Get Behind Me, Satan, underrated by anyone who quits listening after the second track) was a product of the Jack White Junkhouse of Arcane Music, Icky Thump is the Junkhouse itself. The title track opens the record with one-fingered organ lines that give way to a Zeppelin guitar bridge; Jack’s cover of the Patti Page tune, “Conquest”—one of several nods to his new wife and unwitting fashion accessory, model Karen Elson—lays dubbed trumpet trills over the drum beats from “Seven Nation Army,” then pits the same horns against the hypodermic jabs of Jack’s guitar.
Not everything in the rough is a diamond: The two-song heart of the record—”Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn” and “St. Andrew”—introduces a tasteful bagpipe line and highland wailing in time to ruin the Scottish instrument forever in a useless transition track sung by the silent Stripe herself (why Meg gets the occasional vocal track but keeps mum during interviews baffles me). But until Jack and Meg pen their first concept record (I Heart Detroit, anyone?), perfect sequencing isn’t necessary, and Jack more than makes up for the lull.
Big Brother Jack has always made it a point to stick up for Li’l Sis Meg’s drumming, but big brothers typically have ulterior motives. Icky Thump is far and away Jack’s best vocal performance mainly because he finally uses every second of space between Meg’s ham-fisted kickdrum beats, whether with the ever-longer verses in “Little Cream Soda” and “300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues” or his yabbering filler “La la la la la”’s on the first track.
“Effect And Cause” caps Icky with a bit of hackneyed physics: “You can’t take the effect/ And make it the cause.” The White Stripes had gimmickry and chops before they had a myth, and should be praised for improving in all three areas. The highest praise that I can offer is setting the album on repeat, sitting back and listening to this “brother and sister” thump ickies.
