Jack and Meg White have always walked the line between heavy garage rock and wailing, smokey blues. Their new album “Icky Thump” explores and mixes their styles, covering both sides of the spectrum and everywhere in between.
Right from the title track, it’s obvious Jack White is no longer content with throwing out the usual catchy guitar gimmes that his audience expects. He puts some sand in the mix by tweaking his first numbers with retro throwback melodies that give a more stylized quality to his trademark music. A trumpet section even appears in “Conquest”- seemingly out of place at first, it ultimately plays as a perfect compliment to the album’s non sequitur personality.
“Prickly Thorn, but Sweetly Worn” delves into a jumpy, singsong bluegrass genre that doesn’t belong in the rock section. It bridges into the next track “St. Andrew (This Battle in the Air),” a Celtic featuring Meg delivering a rare and hypnotic vocal chant. By this point the blaring bagpipes may be a turnoff for some listeners, but the steady drumbeat keeps you going by the time you get to Jack’s scratched-out guitar riffs in “Little Cream Soda,” and the Whites bring us back to our comfort zone.
But to fit the bill, we get all the guitar squealing and snare drum smashing we need from tracks like “You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do What You’re Told)”, “Bone Broke” and “A Martyr For My Love.” As over-celebrated as Jack White is for being the torchbearer of modern rock, he really is.
Jack makes distinct and daring experiments in “Icky Thump,” yet every transition is seamless. Those who might listen to “Seven Nation Army” or “Blue Orchid” over and over would be the first to scorn this album’s blues and country elements. But there is no Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to any of it. This band is celebrated for its basic setup of sloppy-grunge percussion and Jack’s magic fingers, and the beautiful thing is that’s all they need to make their sounds work.
