Sure, the garage thing has been done before — lots of times, and well, too. But that’s no reason to begrudge the new breed their chance to crank out a little carburetor dung — especially the White Stripes, the most dirty-toned and inspired of the new blooze crews.
Elephant, the duo’s fourth album, is as imposing as its namesake, and not just sonically (they add bass this time around). Just as impressive is Jack White’s reach and command as a songwriter, which finds him internalizing blues and rock antecedents in service of an elemental, wryly tender-hearted vision of his own. Not that you can’t still play “spot the riff, hook, gear or effect” while listening to the Stripes’ thwacking racket. Nods and winks are all over the place — to Cream, Blue Cheer, the Who, Rob Tyner, Dave Davies, Felix Pappalardi and, of course, their beloved Motor City forebears, the Stooges.
Yet it’s not so much the White Stripes’ touchstones that galvanize Elephant as what they do with them. Their cover of the Dusty Springfield hit “I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself”, for example, lets Jack indulge his feminine side even as his ex Meg bashes the hell out of him for it — or at least makes quick work of her drum kit. Then, in the dusky organ-and-guitar come-on that follows, she does a complete about-face, making like Moe Tucker singing “Fever”.
Elephant is shot through with such juxtapositions and leaps of imagination. On “Seven Nation Army”, Jack chokes off heavy, fuzz-toned guitar lines out of power-trio purgatory while singing in a lovesexy falsetto. With a knowing flourish, he turns “Biscuit And Ball”, a strutting blues about getting it on, into a paean that’s less about sex than the glory of love. In the album’s defining moment, he declares, “I wanna be the boy to warm your mother’s heart.” And with a line like that, which proves not to be a line at all, he just might pull it off. Likely he could charm the pants off anyone.