Get Behind Me Satan is the latest from a band trying too hard to live up to its image. The White Stripes broke out in 2003 with the single "Seven Nation Army," and have since been hailed as the second coming of true rock and roll. Hard riffs, soulful singing, and spontaneous lyrics. A young and weirder Rolling Stones.

It's always hard keeping the indie image when you're getting offers to speak on TRL. The White Stripes have realized that the only way to stay The White Stripes is through their actual music. Unfortunately, they've become too weird for their own good.

Musically, the CD is random. Every single track shares one trait - it sounds like a rehearsal in a garage. It's purposely shabby. The greatest strength of the White Stripes was their ability to rapidly transition between hard riffs without seeming out of place. One of the biggest problems with Get Behind Me Satan, asides from its identity, is the lack of that particular strength. Instead, the White Stripes have used each new song as a platform to twist mood. There's songs that borrow from Radiohead. There's songs that borrow from Billy Joel. And, there's songs that borrow from The White Stripes themselves. But every song stays the same stylistically. It begins one way and it ends that way. As far as organization, it ain't present. With every song that Jack goes "naked," emotionally singing unaccompanied minus a quiet and sweet guitar, comes another song that clashes major chords with minor chords, metal guitar with soft piano, and blues singing with rock singing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

My biggest qualm with Get Behind Me Satan isn't the disorganization. It's the weirdness that the band strives for. Somehow, they feel obliged to make something "unique" and "original" because those are the traits that got them where they are. They've replaced actual spunk with faux spunk. The emotion, the unpredictableness, the edge. It's all there, but it feels more superficial. It tries to come across as a "jamming" session between two "artists" but it comes across more as a pretentious mess already thought out ahead of time.

I recommend Get Behind Me Satan for the strength of some individual songs. Particularly, "The Denial Twist," "Take Take Take," and "I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)." These are three of the songs that show off Jack's vocal skills. He's got soul, he's got a 'tude, and he's got passion. As for the rest of the stuff, a "meh" will suffice. Mediocre White Stripes is better than no White Stripes at all.

I fully expect critics to masturbate over this one. There's just this sense in the music industry that you can't bash those artists who have done great material in the past. I mean, it's pretty much an accepted fact among the critics that Jack and Meg White are some sort of geniuses.

I agree with you on most of that. The album is kinda bleh, and they are trying to hard to be different.

The Denial Twist is such a great song though. If they release a third single I think that will be it.

Ahmed, this is, like, my first music review ever. Be nice, you pig.

And, I'm realizing that I didn't go into how the album sounds enough. I love (parts of) the music.