Icky Thump
- The White Stripes
- Band Name: The White Stripes
- Record Label: Warner Bros
- Release Date: Jun 19, 2007
- Critic Score
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Despite all the distortion and teeth-shivering riffs, Icky Thump rivals White Blood Cells in accessibility. [22 Jun 2007, p.68]
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Playing at world, at heavy, at soul, [Jack White] arts it up plenty and protests a little.
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If nothing else, this record is fun.
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'Icky Thump' is brilliant, there's no way around that.
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90"Icky Thump" is really a very odd record indeed, but then, oddness of a particularly bravura nature comes naturally to them.
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90As White Stripes albums go, 'Icky Thump' is a goodie, and there's no resting on of laurels either.
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90It's the sound of a band not stretching out so much as digging in: burrowing deeper into loamy soil they know well. [Jul 2007, p.109]
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Such arty, at times enervating, digressions highlight Icky Thump's curious weight; whereas Elephant's dinosaur-rock stomp got cut with fragile acoustic turns, there is little reprieve here.
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90It's eccentric, it's exhilarating, it is, in parts, absolutely insane. Yet it's never less than absolutely compelling, which is what makes The White Stripes one of the greatest bands of modern times.
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With Icky Thump they have proven, yet again, that being musically sound in both songwriting and craftsmanship, while knowing how to exercise instrumentation is key in making a solid album in today's day and age.
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82At 48 minutes, Icky Thump has enough genre-hopping, rip-roaring tunes to get even the 70s rock purist nodding his head again.
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80The highest highs of Icky can't quite reach the altitude of the band's breakthrough singles, but some of that inadequacy is tempered by the group's more robust sound.
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80A compellingly weird experience. [Jul 2007, p.92]
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80Icky Thump is a fearless album, braving a bold bunch of weird rock transformations: slick studio radio glam, southern jukebox boogie, Scottish Highlander mandolin jaunts (!!), stuttering mariachi machismo, comedic skits, etc.
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With its fuller sound and relaxed flights of fancy, Icky Thump is a mature, but far from stodgy, album -- and, as is usually the case, it's just great fun to hear the band play.
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80Icky Thump positively swarms out of the speakers.
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If you're fond of the curious, Icky Thump is the choice White Stripes album.
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This is a heavyweight album in every sense of the word.
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80The Stripes have never had so much fun. [23 Jun 2007]
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They've put out six strong albums, consecutively. And without a pause, they've expanded their range without loosing sight of their limits.
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80Everywhere on Icky giant riffs leap and shout, with Flamenco horns and those eerie bagpipes and rhythmic shifts and Jack's impatient vocal kinetics, marking new territories even as the White Stripes again populate them with vintage ideas.
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80It's fantastic.
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They strike a forceful balance between elemental and ornate.
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80The new album manages to hone the at-points-aimless progressive aspirations of Get Behind Me Satan into sharp, clear-cut musical growth.
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I suspect those left cold by Satan will find Icky Thump a welcome reheating.
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Like the White Album, Exile on Mainstreet, or Wowee Zowee, this album's risky lack of sonic cohesion becomes the very through line that binds the work as a whole. Unlike those albums, however, not all of the experiments here are uniformly excellent or thrilling, nor do they all live up to the promise of the wonderful, muted Satan.
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The White Stripes, at the same moment they claim to have finally overcome your entanglements, have provided you the ammunition of a hit-or-miss album.
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There is enough vitality in both composition and instrumentality to suggest that continued praise is warranted for this decade-long duo. [Summer 2007, p.86]
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This is by far The White Stripes' most peculiar record.
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Like his sometime heroes Led Zeppelin, Jack White builds monuments. They're suitable for awestruck visits. But they're no place to settle down.
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Though far from The White Stripes' best work, Icky Thump is still plenty good, brash, and noisy in the way great rock records are supposed to be.
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70Icky Thump, despite the presence of some simply insane over-indulgence, is a great album.
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Its rock is louder, its campiness richer.
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70Icky Thump is freighted with moments of frazzled virtuosity yet may prove excessively outre for most palettes.
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The title track erupts like a "Seven Nation Army...." The rest is a mixed bag.
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60A noisy, cranky piece of work. [Jul 2007, p.91]
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50Icky Thump is an anti-climatic, vaguely appealing record that unfortunately feels like a retreat from the ballsy piano-based pop eccentricity of Get Behind Me Satan. And that's a shame because going back to basics - at least in this case - feels like surrender.
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40Most of Icky Thump's songs sound half-assed, with keyboard parts thrown in ad hoc, but at least they had the good sense to trim the piano bar balladry.
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The affecting style that made them the most imaginative revivalists of their generation has been replaced by half-assed and half-hearted prog rock.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 104 out of 119
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Mixed: 9 out of 119
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Negative: 6 out of 119
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DavidR9
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