Brand new, still sealed.

Bagpipes, a song written as the soundtrack to a Michel Gondry music video, Patti Pages musical shadow, and Jack and Meg co-narrating a scavengers rummages: It must be time for Icky Thump, the many-flavored riposte to 2005s Get Behind Me Satan. The duo starts big with the title trackJacks fast-tumbling, falsetto-tinged lyrics jagging on hyper keyboard-sounding segues and Megs pounding drums. They rarely shy from an idea, invoking acoustic Bob Dylan to frame 300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues, but interjecting a series of distortion-laden guitar paroxysms for good measure. The end of Icky, on Effect and Cause, is where Jacks trademark vocal warble and spare, quick acoustic strums meet Megs single-minded beats. Everywhere on Icky giant riffs leap and shout, with Flamenco horns and those eerie bagpipes and rhythmic shifts and Jacks impatient vocal kinetics, marking new territories even as the White Stripes again populate them with vintage ideas.

Track Listings