White Stripe's Elephant - Album Review - old archive published in Evergreen 2003

The White Stripes-Elephant
Grade B



Retro-reactive


The White Stripes release a new album with creative new additions to their sound sure to keep their fan bass growing and happy.
The White Strips have fallen to the all too common music industry fairy tale. You’ve all herd it before, a band forms with the distinct purpose to create a new sound meant for pubs and small crowds of loyal fans. Soon they write a hit single and end up touring the world as rock Gods. The result is the band selling out and struggling only for the top forty hits.
In the case of the White strips are quite the opposite. Their new album gives the world the same style we all fell in love with last year. Jack White’s guitar stylings are still dripping of classic rock influence with his pedal always stuck on the “crunch sound”. Jack’s voice is still nasal and annoyingly addictive, as Meg continues to drum with simplistic elegance that fits their sound so well. What may distress many is that the band still had no bass player, and never will.
The White strips do change a few things to tweak their style. On many of the songs more than one guitar can be herd, with Jack re-recording bass lines on his guitar. While some may scream at this the fact is this change manages to keep their music fresh and new.
This is needed as many of the songs are very similar to songs of their previous albums. The track “There’s no Home For You Here” is an exact copy of “Dead Leave on the Dirty Ground” from the White Blood Cells album. The only major difference being that instead of singing on this song jacks vocals resemble a free style poet. This idea could be a revolution. No longer to artist have to write new songs simply change the style of your vocals on your last CD and you have a new album.
Perhaps the best song on the album is “In the Cold, Cold Night” which actually features Meg White as the vocalist. This song is rather haunting with Jack laying down a simple guitar outline with an organ filling up the chords. The song isn’t meant for rocking but rather grooving. This song serves as a pause and refresher amongst an album full of retro rock tracks
The White Strips think of them serves as naturalist, in that the want to restore the purity of Rock. Elephant is written and recorded to appeal to many listeners form many genera’s. Jack White brags in the liner notes on how they used no computers or height tech equipment to record this album. In this day and age it doubtful that refusing to use current technology is really smart or worthy of recognition. Just because you didn’t use a compute to mix doesn’t mean you’re better than those who did, yet that’s the mentality of the band.
The White strips manage to create a good album. Every track will eventually grow on you. Elephant is a testimony to their ability to grow and shrink, providing us with a very strange band.