White Blood Cells
- The White Stripes
- Band Name: The White Stripes
- Record Label: Sympathy For The Record Industry / V2
- Release Date: Jul 3, 2001
- Critic Score
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100This fine, fine album (quite possibly the finest of year) signals that the White Stripes have arrived. Hype or no hype, this is a band of significance...
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90White Blood Cells doesn't veer far from the formula of past White Stripes records; all are tense, sparse and jagged. But it's here that they've finally come into their own, where Jack and Meg White finally seem not only comfortable with the path they've chosen, but practiced, precise and able to convey the deepest sentiment in a single bound.
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90The White Stripes' songs are so strong, so deliciously simple, it's genius.
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It sounds exactly how an underground sensation's breakthrough album should: bigger and tighter than their earlier material, but not so polished that it will scare away longtime fans.
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90Make no mistake about it, The White Stripes are the real deal, and if they can continue to kick out the jams as they do on White Blood Cells, everyone else would be well advised to get the fuck out of their way.
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The White Stripes are a great rock and roll band, and White Blood Cells a suitable coming-out party.
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80Few other performers have electrified country blues to such plaintive and non-parodic effect since the heyday of Led Zeppelin. [Sep 2001, p.100]
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80Their sonic ingenuity enhances even the most basic garage-rock templates. [Sep 2001, p.122]
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The only twang on the record is the sound of strings breaking as Jack attacks his guitar. [Sep 2001, p.104]
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80It trades in the Robert Johnson and Dolly Parton covers that go over so well live for more of singer/guitarist/keyboardist Jack White's hard-blues, garage-rock originals.
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80The Detroit duo spin sordid tales and lovelorn drama with just the right amount of restrained percussion, blooze picking and screaming confessionals. [Sep 2001, p.93]
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The White Stripes can create an ungodly amount of noise, and it opens White Blood Cells by doing just that. But it makes some of the most memorably melodic ungodly noise on the market.
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While a few songs aren't quite as fleshed out as others, nearly every selection on White Blood Cells provides the sort of bluesy good-time kicks otherwise unavailable in today's pop marketplace.
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75By delivering pert '60s-esue pop numbers with a twangy drawl, and by playing rockabilly riffs on torchy blues odes, Jack and Meg balance their divergent influences well.
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70Though nothing new -- instrument-wise -- is added to the mix of drums, guitar, and piano, the White Stripes' recipe cooks up heavier overall on White Blood Cells, while still retaining some of the cheeky, barroom brashness that has become their stock in trade.
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Their worst album so far.... Too much of the album ("Expecting," "Aluminum," "I Can't Wait," "I Can Learn") wallows in an odd, crusty hard-rock haze.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 52 out of 60
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Mixed: 3 out of 60
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Negative: 5 out of 60
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