Music

You’ve got to hand it to Jack ’n’ Meg. They know how to make an entrance. For starters, there are those garish, Pearly King and Queen suits they’ve been sporting lately. More importantly, there’s the title track and opener here – an emphatic finale to the hat-trick (along with the peerless ‘Seven Nation Army’ and ‘Blue Orchid’) of ‘What the fuck was that?’ lead off singles from their last three albums. Even with their self-imposed instrumental constrictions now more than familiar, The White Stripes are still managing to make more striking, more modern sounding, more thrilling records than any other guitar band.

Just like their two other post-breakthrough LPs, The White Stripes’ sixth album takes their none-more-raw garage blues and seamlessly blends in new elements, creating something new yet at the same time unmistakably them. On ‘Get Behind Me, Satan’ it was a marimba, on ‘Icky Thump’ (a bastardised northern England saying) it’s, er, bagpipes – on both the bonkers ‘Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn’ and the Meg-spoken ‘St Andrew (This Battle Is In The Air)’. Last time, there were barely any electric guitars, now there are overdubs and, on the likes of ‘300mph Torrential Outpour Blues’, lots of them. There’s two organ-led, almost Faces-style mid-paced ballads in the shape of ‘I’m Slowly Turning Into You’ and ‘A Martyr For My Love For You’, but also a ludicrous, flamenco-metal, mariachi trumpet-augmented cover of an ancient Patti Page song, ‘Conquest’ (which makes full use of the modern studio the pair used). Conversly, there’s ‘Bone Broke’, ‘Little Cream Soda’ and ‘Effect And Cause’ – all of which could have found a home on any of the Stripes’ five previous albums.

Confused? You probably will be. Thrilled? You definitely will be. Jack ’n’ Meg just wouldn’t have it any other way.