THE WHITE STRIPES - ICKY THUMP (180g 2LP)

The White Stripes Icky Thump On 180g 2LP Set From Warner Brothers Records

Mastered at AcousTech by Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman

First LP Mastered at AcousTech from One-Inch Tape

The White Stripes and the most bombastic album they've ever produced! While revealing the band's roots in American folk music, Icky Thump is an explosive, revolutionary assault that brings together garage rock, every blues style of the past 100 years, nouveau, flamenco, leader and guitar god Jack White’s fastest guitar solo ever recorded, hard country, speed metal, a slide-guitar epic, surf music, spoken word and even bagpipes. This is truly a modern rock and roll masterpiece!

A lot changed in the White Stripes' world between Get Behind Me Satan and Icky Thump: Meg White moved to L.A., while Jack White left Detroit for Nashville, married and had a daughter, and formed the Raconteurs, a side project that won so much praise that some fans worried that it meant the end of the White Stripes. Those fears were as unfounded as the speculation that White's new hometown meant that the band was going to go country (after all, Jack and Meg are wearing the costumes of London's Pearly Kings and Queens, not Nudie suits, on Icky Thump's cover).

Though recorded at Nashville's state-of-the-art Blackbird Studio and covers everything from bagpipes to metal, Icky Thump is unmistakably a White Stripes album. The eclectic feel of Get Behind Me Satan remains, but is less obvious; interestingly, out of all the band's previous work, Icky Thump's brash and confessional songs most closely resemble the group's underground effort De Stijl. "300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues" possesses acoustic blues and carefully crafted wordplay harken back to "Sister, Do You Know My Name." Meanwhile, "Rag & Bone" is a cute, ragamuffin cousin of "Let's Build a Home" and casts Jack and Meg as enterprising garbage-pickers; the sly grin in Jack's voice is palpable. And, while Get Behind Me Satan was heavy on pianos, Icky Thump is just plain heavy, dominated by primal, stomping rock that feels like it's been caged for a very long time and is just now being released. Jack White's guitars are back in a big way. Once again,  the White Stripes defy expectations, and their return to rock isn't necessarily a return to the kind of rock they mastered on Elephant.

All in all, an exhilirating listen, particularly on analog LP, mastered at Acoustech by Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman for tremendous sound.

The White Stripes Icky Thump Track Listing:

1. Icky Thump
2. You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told)
3. 300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues
4. Conquest
5. Bone Broke
6. Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn
7. St. Andrew (This Battle Is In The Air)
8. Little Cream Soda
9. Rag And Bone
10. I'm Slowly Turning Into You
11. A Martyr For My Love For You
12. Catch Hell Blues
13. Effect and Cause