The question shouldn't be when will The White Stripes put out a substandard record? With six records in six years, all with valid arguments for best-in-catalog status, the question should be how long until we can adequately evaluate the body of the Stripes work? They've never wavered from rock, but under that heading they've swung the pendulum between straight forward punk and down home country rock and blues and won critical acclaim for each turn.
The turn taken by The White Stripes with Get Behind Me Satan might be toward a more venturesome, experimental side of their craft. At least in the term of songwriting, this effort feels like the duo is reaching outside for inspiration, and finding it in droves. The constants are of course a guitar driven feel, and the front and center position occupied by Jack White's vocals. Any evidence that Satan is a diversion dispels with its opener, "Blue Orchid" an angular, mechanized blast furnace of a song that might be a refugee from White Blood Cells or Elephant. He's still singing in his pubescent strain the ancient little girl mythology he so favors, but now its backed with something else. Past the opener, songs like "The Nurse", featuring a marimba and the western flavored round for the fire, "Little Ghost" make up the bulk of the record. There are songs on this album that don't sound like The White Stripes; it ends with a straight forward piano ballad.
But then there are sprinklings of other songs that sound like vintage White Stripes. Never shy about his ability to bring heat to the fray, White shines like the new rock messiah on "Instinct Blues" and "Forever For Her (Is Over For Me)." Whatever turns the Stripes take, however they choose to steer their bullet train they still know their backbone is in balls to the wall mayhem rock. Time will tell where the turns on Get Behind Me Satan take them, but the view from here is exhilarating and new. |