As with THE WHITE STRIPES' previous album "Elephant", the rumour mill has gone into overdrive where the contents of "Get Behind Me Satan" are concerned. The theories have suggested everything from large orchestras and months of recording through to the 'fact' (well, actually, this proves to be true) that there are - sharp intake of breath - basslines involved.
The reality, of course, suggests that Jack and Meg have actually taken all this in their stride. Yes, it is typical of Jack's sense of perversity to stage his wedding (to unknown model Karen Elson, rumoured to be the custodian of a remarkable voice herself) within two weeks of the album's release - well, ya gotta find a gimmick to fight the omnipresent Coldplay album in the marketplace, ain't ya? - but mostly to these ears "Get Behind Me Satan" sounds like The White Stripes taking it in their stride and makeing the record THEY want to make. As usual.
Recorded in the princely timespan of (cough!) two weeks at Jack's Third Man Studios in Detroit and mixed at Ardent in Memphis (the home of the virtually all the Stax soul you own and - swoon - Big Star), "Get Behind Me Satan" somehow manages the balancing act of being both the same old, same old, and yet also an animal of a very different stripe. Yes, certainly trailer single "Blue Orchid" sports riffs of a zippy, Led Zep-type White watchers will soon recognise, but like Jack's falsetto, this track is something of a red herring where the album as a whole is concerned.
In fact, "Blue Orchid" is only one of three electric-guitar based tracks here and is the only thing truly comparable with the riff-happy likes of "Seven Nation Army" and "The Hardest Button To Button." Yes, both "Instinct Blues" ( which sounds like a club-footed, inbred and bloodstained cousin of "Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground") and "Red Rain" rock hard, but both overcook the dish and the daft, faux-metal ending of the former suggests frustration with this format is creeping in.
So all credit to the Whites for expanding the template to make it work on their terms elsewhere, which is - in effect - the majority of "Get Behind Me Satan", and even before you're through the first three songs you realise significant changes have taken place in Stripesworld. "The Nurse" follows swiftly in the slipstream of "Blue Orchid" and is indeed a pretty major departure. Taking in jaunty marimbas, voodoo shakers and explosions of percussions from Meg that squall in like tropical storms, it's a weird and oppressive thing, more akin to The Creatures than Charley Patton and quite inexplicable for the first few listens. "The Doorbell", meanwhile, is more in keeping with the album's overall sound and finds Jack pumping a mean piano and relating a playful, expectant, love-sick story based around the chorus of "I'm thinkin' 'bout my doorbell and when you're gonna ring it" while Meg keeps it brutally simple. It works a treat, in case you were still wondering.
Hang around for a while and you realise a couple of the Chinese whispers surrounding the album were correct, too. "Forever For Her (Is Over For Me)" does have a curiously orchestral leaning to it, though to my ears it's only embellished with marimba, shaker and piano outside of the regular guitar and drums. Somehow, it pulls off the trick of being dense AND sparse at the same time (Spector vs. Jim O'Rourke, anyone?) and rises arond Jack's typically coy lyrics such as "like the birds and bees, let's just do it." "The Denial Twist", meanwhile, does actually find a sneaky bassline tempting its' way into the mix and manfully aiding and abetting a strutting, piano-fuelled tune akin to "Highway"-era Free with Jack again pushing the tongue-in-cheek sexuality. You can almost hear the laugh as he opens with "If you think a kiss is all on the lips, well you got it all wrong." Hmm, Saucy Jack strikes again and no mistake.
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But just to remind us The White Stripes remains very much a two (wo)man army, much of the remainder revels in its' own sparseness. "As Ugly As I Seem", for example, is lo-fi, acoustic blues, as close-miked and downhome as they come, with nimble finger-picking from Jack and Meg doing the Humble Pie bit with congas; "Take, Take, Take" shuffles along on a loping blues-y acoustic groove straight outta "Exile On Main Street"-era Stones and "Little Ghost" is as folky and Appalachian as can be with its' hillbilly swagger and mandolin. It's jokey and celebratory, and even if it is a pisstake (which is a strong possibility) it's a damn good one.
In typical White Stripes fashion, they leave us with a track simply dripping with ambiguity. "I'm Lonely (But I'm Not That Lonely)" is a shakily determined, redemptive piano ballad with Jack again sidling up to that falsetto. "I love my sister, Lord knows how I've missed her," he begins, fanning the flames, before concluding "sometimes I get jealous of that little pet...I'm lonely but I ain't that lonely yet." Miaow. Take that, gossip mongers.
"Get Behind Me Satan", then, certainly isn't the sound of The White Stripes shaking the corporate fiend's hand that some people foolishly seem to have expected. With Meg's ruthlessly basic drumming still making Tony McCarroll seem like Keith Moon and Jack stripping back the sparseness even further, it's still very much about the two of them, only that they've been tempted by slightly more exotic fruits to sample alongside the traditional dishes. Crucially, they've remembered the tune factor too, so if they present this to the feller with the fork and pointy beard at the crossroads, he'll surely continue to covet them.
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