Taking an ungodly-for-them three weeks to record the 47 minutes and 44 seconds found here, newly relocated power duo The White Stripes (Jack’s in Nashville with his pregnant supermodel wife; Meg’s off being reclusive somewhere in L.A.) have delivered their longest long-player since 2003’s Elephant. Here’s how the new guy stacks up, track-by-track:

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Joyfear follows Anakrid’s expansive Rapture of the Deep in kind with a tangential strain of slow, droning malevolence. Its fetishistic artwork is cold and impersonal, drab and unforgiving. A spray-painted textured cover with no discernible thematic pretense houses equally inscrutable music. The fact that it’s a one-sided vinyl-only release limited to 100 copies practically dares […]

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For all their laurels, Radiohead’s kind of like the Pope – zealots claim infallibility, rationals know better. If you’re not in on the inside concept (or only had your elder brother’s Brother Word Processor 10 years ago), OK Computer is a cold, confusing mess. And Kid A and Amnesiac – both stellar portraits of a […]

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As far as hippies go, Joni Mitchell has got to be damn-near one of the brightest yet most ill-tempered ones. But you can’t condemn her wayward hippie beginnings too much because, back when she hit the folk scene, being a hippie was actually somewhat subversive- a far cry from the lame, washed up cliché it […]

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Rilo Kiley makes no bones about its commercial aspirations on Under the Blacklight, its fourth record and major label debut for Warner Bros. Since 2004’s More Adventurous, lead singer Jenny Lewis has catapulted to quasi-stardom as the indie it girl, showing up on everything from Bright Eyes to Postal Service records. After years of indie […]

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M.I.A. bursts out of the gate on her second album with both guns blazing. She’s not kidding around at all. Everything about Kala is confrontational. From the patronizing political self-righteousness to the relentless flurry of abrasive beats to the jagged rapping, Kala takes everything that was provoking about her exotic debut, Arular, and intensifies it […]

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By its third record, 2001’s heartfelt and immaculate Girls Can Tell, Spoon stopped sounding like the sum of its influences (namely, Guided by Voices, the Pixies, and Nirvana) and actually created the outline of a sound that it adheres to to this day. Succinct arrangements, spiky guitars, and minimal beats have served Spoon well over […]

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