White Stripes
Get Behind Me Satan
(V2)

Get behind me who? While other reviews make "Satan's Little Helper" jokes, let Stinkweeds set you straight. In the Bible, Matthew 16:21-28 and Mark 8:31-38 recount a story about how Jesus Christ tells his disciples in plain language that he would go to Jerusalem, be tortured by religious leaders, be killed, and resurrected three days later. Upon hearing this, his disciple Peter exclaims, "this shall never happen to you!" Jesus knows he has prophesy to fulfill, however unpleasant, so he sees this as temptation to abandon the path. He replies with a curt "Get behind me, Satan!" to put Peter in his place. "Get behind me, Satan!" is an admonishment to a tempter, not a request for cover.

So what's tempting Jack White? If it's the antagonist in "Blue Orchid," then it's some siren dangling her forbidden fruit. If it's the temptation to follow the same formula, White puts it in its place by substituting marimba, piano and acoustic guitar for the lo-fi squeals of his vintage 1964 Res-O-Glas Montgomery Ward Airline guitar. In fact, only three out of the 13 songs feature a prominent guitar, and only one would have fit on Elephant. None of these have Elephant's bombastic guitar solos, and the crunch of "Red Rain" is undercut by White messing with tape speed and Meg's toy piano-sounding, color-coded desk bells. The greatest thing is that this allows White to maintain the infamous restrictions he places on the band while branching out into new territory.

The piano and marimba don't lead to radical changes in song structure - they're more like lounge remixes of any typical White Stripes song. Wherever the piano tunes need to rock out a little more, Meg fills up tons of space by beating the crap out of her drums. There are only a handful of quiet songs, including the chilling bluegrass "Little Ghost." (key lyric: "when I shook 'er hand, I really shook a glove.") The ballads are melodic enough to stay interesting, except "White Moon," which is four minutes of Jack White and a piano, verse after verse, going absolutely nowhere. Fortunately, the thump and growl of the guitar-driven "Instinct Blues" follows to shake things up. It's a barnburner about how easy it should be to get some, citing examples from the animal kingdom. The quirky Meg track this time around is "Passive Manipulation," advice for women, sung by a woman, but written by a man, possibly to sound less preachy. Thankfully, it's under a minute long. Sorry, Meg.

Preaching, listening to your mother and gushing over Rita Hayworth are admittedly some of the least rock 'n' roll things anyone but Jack White could get away with. That's ultimately what makes the White Stripes so fascinating - their revisionist history of the way music never really quite used to be. It's funny how acoustic guitar and piano sound more stripped-down than just one guitar, isn't it? The only problem with their new concept is that rearrangement is the only way White can expand the band's sound. Still, White is taking rock 'n' roll back to its roots while continually pushing his band forward, and that's about all we can ask.

-Mario


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