White Stripes: Icky Thump B+

The fact that The White Stripes' Icky Thump was released just one week after The Queens of the Stone Age's Era Vulgaris serves to highlight both Icky's strengths and weaknesses -- and, to some extent, those of The Stripes themselves. Both The White Stripes and QOTSA are at the pinnacle of Noughties rock. Both are artistic and commercial successes. Both have produced two undeniably classic albums. Both have done consistently excellent work across their careers. And, in creating their newest releases, both faced the question of how to follow up an album that broadened their sounds but alienated some fans (those albums being Get Behind Me Satan and Lullabies To Paralyze, respectively). Last week, I wrote that, good as it is, QOTSA's Vulgaris plays things a little too safe, retreating somewhat to the pre-Lullabies days. \nNot so, Icky. Rather than try to reverse things, Jack White seems content to go speeding off the cliff. Strange, bitter and punctuated by bone-crunching peals of distortion, Icky is even less mainstream-friendly than GBMS -- its "broadening" isn't so much a natural outgrowth of The Stripes' influences (like the latter) as wild experiments in what sounds the band can possibly get away with incorporating. And yet, Jack White's enormous songwriting talent almost manages to pull it all together. Almost.\nMake no mistake, most of the tracks should still please fans. Blues/country/garage-rock-styled highlights include title track "Icky Thump," "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told)," "Little Cream Soda" and "Effect & Cause." \nBut things get pretty weird on the electric guitar-enhanced tango "Conquest," the Renaissance-era Celtic folk track "Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn," and the partly spoken musical theater number "Rag & Bone." Still, these work pretty well (the last being particularly charming). However, the surreal, avant-garde, bagpipe-featuring "St. Andrew (This Battle Is In The Air)" does not. It's easily the worst track in The Stripes' entire discography (and I even like bagpipes).\nIn sum, Icky is a bold (if not wholly successful) attempt to keep pushing the Stripes' boundaries. And, who knows, maybe their next album will reap the benefits.