The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
By: Mark Runyon | Category: Album Archive | 06/08/05 | 10:03 PM
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 Grade: A |
Genre: Indie Rock
Summary: This album is a genre fusing, manic dancing, crazy kaleidoscope of sounds that are mesmerizing in their strangeness.
It's a cool summer evening like any other in the mountains of West Virginia. Beneath the pine branches rests an old one-room church where residents have gathered to lift snakes to the sky and shake their frenzied tambourines as they sing their ancient gospel melodies. While this sight is about as usual in northern Deliverance country as a Waffle House waitress minus a handful of teeth, what is peculiar is the man sitting in the back row diligently taking notes. He looks so dark and stately with his long hair under the dapper bowler hat that he could pass for the dark lord himself. As you squint closer, the lines pull together as you begin to make out a face. Could it be Jack White? What could rock's eccentric savior be doing keeping company with this lot? Inspiration seems to bloom in strange places as Mr. White delivers his most daring, quirky and satisfying work on Get Behind Me Satan. |
Last year, he was elbow deep in reinventing country legend Loretta Lynn in her Grammy winning album Van Lear Rose. Not a soul who heard it could claim that it would have had half the vision it did without his presence turning the knobs in the production booth. Now with Get Behind Me Satan, he brings in a crisp vitality and intensity to the project that we've never seen before. I'll admit that Elephant was an album lost in translation when I first gave it a listen o' so long ago. I don't know if I prematurely discarded it because of the populous single "Seven Nation Army" echoed through me from every radio in the universe, or if it just wasn't the right moment to be introduced to the Stripes. Whatever the cause, I have super glued myself to the bucking bronco that is Get Behind Me Satan. I can't even find the time of day for the long awaited Coldplay because Jack seems to continually perch on my shoulder poking me to queue him up.
To hear this disk, you get the impression that White is almost annoyed by the fame and fortune that have sprouted from the asphalt with the release of Elephant. Indie garage bands whose noses are buried in their artistic integrity just don't hit it big. They entered the Satan session like they have on their prior records. It was a three-week recording session where Jack and Meg played all the instruments and captured the fun on analog equipment. One of these days he's going to upgrade to an 8-track. In a recent interview with Newsweek, he was quoted as saying " Most musicians, even the fake plastic ones, would tell you that they liked their record better when it was a demo. That's because when they made the final album, nobody in the room knew when to stop. If you're painting and don't know when to lay the brush down, you're going over what you've done until the paint is this thick. That's the most important part of art--knowing when to stop." A brilliant insight to sum up the over production that afflicts so many albums released these days.
The result of this session is a genre fusing, manic dancing, crazy kaleidoscope of sounds that are mesmerizing in their strangeness. The Stripes have forgone their traditional electric guitars on a majority of these numbers in favor of maracas, banjos and they even ripped off some poor kid's bicycle bell. All these widely disparate elements constantly threaten to capsize their carefully balanced canoe, but it never happens. They rock along completely unaware of their precarious situation.
The album's opening track doubles as the band's first single. "Blue Orchid" is a pulsing, distorted rock song focused on grinding guitars and White's glammed up vocals. It is one of the few songs on the album that utilize their heavy guitar riffs, and it seems to slowly inch us into this daring work, knowing at any minute the "Seven Nation Army" devotees could run through the wall leaving cartoon imprints of themselves. White makes zero compromises, dropping the hammer on this sorted musical collection. "My Doorbell" could have got them a starting gig on Soul Train as the band of the week. It is a classic blend of funk and R&B that recalls the careless tunes of the Jackson Five. It weaves a potent groove that leaks into the later shake hoppin' "The Denial Twist." Set beside these "Little Ghost", a hillbilly tune complete with dueling banjos, sloppy tambourines and nasally vocals. This work is like a blessed stream of consciousness adventure in Jack White's head. There is no telling what is going to show up on the next track, but he's hooked us in breathless anticipation.
He doesn't land every melody. "Instinct Blues" is a deep blues number that overdoses on fuzzy distortion until it falls into the frame of a forgettable Led Zeppelin tune. Even though it's a throw away track, I don't fly past it on every listen because nesting between the lines there is something quite intriguing about it. That is the key that keeps this fascinating mesh of songs from eating one another. They are all possessed with Jack White's flaming spirit that brands his passion into each song without caring if this album sells a single copy. This is a personal work for himself, and the pleasure shines on you of a satisfied mind that would have made Johnny Cash jealous. The closing number, "I'm Lonely (But I'm Not Lonely Yet)," is a solo piano piece that seems to be Hank Williams sharing the bench with Ray Charles. White is wearing his heart on his sleeve as he mulls giving into his loneliness to call a slowly fading love.
When you are looking to sample rock's intoxicants, why would you bother with bands like Audioslave and Foo Fighters when you could saddle up to the bar and order yourself the full bodied taste of the White Stripes. This is an excellent disk that works its way into you on each consecutive listen. It takes a lot of chances through introducing us to a side of the White Stripes that will effectively burn the Elephant bandwagon. Yet in the end, Jack White is returning to his roots by playing the music that is in his soul. These numbers are a lifetime spent in a torrid love affair with music, spit out in no discernable form or fashion. It is a beautifully erratic mosaic that is honest and unassuming. This is Jack White.
The White Stripes will be the headlining band on the 99X stage during Friday night's session of Music Midtown. If you are in the Atlanta area get your tickets before they are all snatched up. For the rest of you, check in this weekend for a review of their set with Interpol.
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