Rootless Root Rockers

WHAT: The White Stripes Get Behind Me Satan WHERE: Your Local Record Store

Get Behind Me Satan poses a challenge for Detroit’s The White Stripes; namely, how do you create a worthy follow-up to an album that could do no wrong. That album, 2003’s Elephant, was one of those rare records that finds favor with both the pointy-headed music critic set and America’s Miracle Whip-loving general public. It was raw, powerful music with a wildly experimental side to it. Elephant had people gushing—willy-nilly smashing the word “genius” right up against Jack White’s name. Which is all good and well, except of course, for the fact that it leads the public to expect great, shining things from such artists forevermore. That’s a steep task to live up to. Which leads us right back to the album-in-question…

Get Behind Me Satan hit record stores a few months ago—rolling strong on radio play of the albums two radio-friendly singles: Blue Orchid and My Doorbell. The album rolls to a start with Blue Orchid. It’s a catchy tune—distorted, drivinging, Iron Butterfly-meets-Judas Priest power chords balance well with Jack’s falsetto. Meg pitches in with powerful, if nothing fancy, drumming—your basic, successful White Stripes formula.

Then things get a little weird. Or, more exactly, a little weirder than anything the Stripes have done to date. The Nurse nips at the heels of Blue Orchid. It’s an odd, creepy song filled with sinister marimbas, the odd piano turn, a spattering of guitar and drums, and plenty of decidedly morbid lyrics. It’s not a poor song. It works. It just comes across a bit disjointed following the first track.

Likewise, My Doorbell (the third track), veers off in yet another direction. It’s light, playful stuff that has White sounding a hell of a lot like In Through the Out Door-era Robert Plant.

The strange (and strangely compelling) mish-mash of songs continues for another 10 tracks. There’s the jaunty roots-style Little Ghost, the somber, plodding White Moon, and the intense, surging Instinct Blues….

The one consistent trait to this album, is that it’s so inconsistent. Perhaps “inconsistent” is a poor choice of words. The songs are consistently strong (well, with the exception of the lifeless Passive Manipulation). The tunes don’t, however, hold together as cohesively as the material on the four previous Stripes’ albums. I recognize that this is an odd criticism since it’s the band’s very willingness to experiment with different musical styles that makes it interesting in the first place. Still, after a couple of months of spinning this disc, I can’t deny that I still find the album’s lack of focus and transitions a bit uncomfortable.

Now, here’s where this review gets weird, because even though I find fault with the scattered song selection on this album, I’d still recommend buying the disc. Why? Because a merely decent White Stripes album is still a damn fine album. In fact, if you were bored by the sparse guitar/drum combo on 2002’s White Blood Cells, you’ll probably love the eclectic mix on Get Behind Me Satan.