I’m guessing you know which one.īut every time you feel like you’ve got White Blood Cells figured out, it takes a left turn.
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Even here, the group is indicating their direction towards the future with album closer ‘This Protector’, which precedes the experimentation and keyboard-driven nature of Get Behind Me Satan by a full album: the in-between release, Elephant, made a bid for stadium rock supremacy with a single song. The band wouldn’t simply let themselves be defined on White Blood Cells either.
The group are already impossibly stripped down, but by taking away most of their influences and references, they lean instead on raw feral power. What the album achieves is a sort of directness and immediacy that no other act could convincingly provide. Simplified riffs that favour chunky chords frequently replace the pentatonic soloing of previous records. Perfection isn’t the aim of the record, and none of the band’s songs here show any signs of wanting to change or evolve drastically from their incredibly impactful comfort zone.įor what it’s worth, the band were, in fact, attempting to separate themselves from the blues revival moniker that had been their bread and butter up to this point. The thunderous clap of ‘I Think I Smell a Rat’ somehow has the same amount of oomph as the half-acoustic ‘Now Mary’ and the atmospheric lament of ‘The Same Boy You’ve Always Known’. Retaining the rough and ready sensibilities that made them unique, Jack and Meg just explode out of the speakers on every single song. Still, for every fingerpicked flub or rhythmic inconsistency, it’s impossible to understate just how absolutely massive the album sounds.
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That said, it doesn’t take a professional music ear to hear that “polished” isn’t exactly a proper descriptor for White Blood Cells. Whatever The White Stripes were going to produce, it was going to be the most polished version of the band yet. The band decided to retain the speedy recording process but, instead, upgraded to a 24 track console in a professional recording studio that included reserved time for mastering. An increased recording budget and studio set-up was a necessary step forward, as the band’s previous two releases had been recorded quickly within the band’s native Detroit on subpar recording equipment.
The simplistic yet awesome garage rock? You practically can’t get away from it: ‘Fell In Love With a Girl’, ‘Expecting’, and ‘I Can’t Wait’, just to name a few examples. The somewhat guarded and misunderstood crutch of masculinity sometimes interpreted as misogyny? ‘I’m Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman’ could fit the bill. The songs with “little” in the title? Yup, here too: ‘Little Room’.
The sound collages? Check out ‘Aluminum’ or ‘The Union Forever’ if you’re looking for a cut and paste Orson Welles references. The twee sensibilities that the band defaulted to when they weren’t attempting to approximate classic blues riffage are here too, in the form of the acoustic songs ‘Hotel Yorba’ and ‘We’re Going To Be Friends’. ‘Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground’ even quotes Son House’s ‘Death Letter Blues’, in case the band’s early releases didn’t convince you of their genuine appreciation. While the video for “Fell In Love With A Girl” could've single-handedly raised the price of LEGO stock the other jams on here are momentous, from the fuzz distorted clarion call of album opener “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” to the finger-pointing accusations of “I Think I Smell A Rat” this album has everything you could ever want from the Detroit duo.Ĭut directly from the original 1/4″ master tapes, pressed on HEAVY 180-gram vinyl and lovingly ensconced in a beauteous Stoughton tip-on jacket…this album has never looked better, and perhaps, has looked markedly worse.So what’s the same? Well the blues approximations, for one. Unique for a White Stripes album, as it contains no covers, no guest musicians, no blues and no guitar solos, this album would be most of the world's introduction to the band. 3 I'm Finding It Harder to Be a Gentlemenįor this one, Jack and Meg decamped to Memphis to record at the legendary Easley-McCain Studio and walked away with a bonafide classic.
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