So this album had to grow on me. Don’t get me wrong, I am a HUGE White Stripes fan as evidenced by the LARGE amount of money i dropped on pre-release items and different media versions of this album. It’s hard not to think that Jack White has developed something of an ego–after all, when music critics call you a genius for anything as small as slapping an organ around a bit, it must be hard not to get a little bit of a god complex.

But if he has, he has not let it diffuse the element of play and seeming improvisation that brings the White Stripes sound together. The White Stripes is where Jack White is at the height of his powers. His brief excursion into The Raconteurs with Broken Boy Soldiers felt too constricted and lacking energy, and in other projects he didn’t sound as though he was having all that much fun. Many regard Get Behind Me Satan as dark White Stripes, but I don’t go along with that diagnosis–there are way too many fluctuations about that disc even that keeps me from thinking that Jack and Meg were getting too dour during that recording session.

With Meg White the music becomes music again, playing with all types of sounds and styles and maybe even poking a little fun at musical schools that we may take a little too seriously. This IS rock, after all, and if we can end “I’m Slowly Turning Into You” with a repetitive La chorus, what the hell? Why not?
The album kicks off with the dark, plodding guitar that blazes up to life every few seconds, and a sinuous synth ripple that slithers through the melody. “Icky thump/Who’da thunk?/Sittin drunk on a wagon to Mexico?” Jack yowls, describing the less pleasant corners of Mexico, and taking a moment to jab at Americans (”Why don’t you kick yourself out/You’re an immigrant too!”).

It softens up a lot for the catchy, bluesier rocker “You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You’re Told),” and the mellow gritty “300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues.” Then the album goes through two phases: the first is one of British and Scottish folkiness, and a trumpety rocker that sounds like a B-side from Beirut. Then the last leg of the album slips back to blazing rock’n'roll, full of dark energy and retro organ.

Yeah, we have Jack blazing away like a forest fire on his guitars, whether it’s softer blues riffs, ringing blasts or hard-rocking swirls. And Meg smashes the drums like no other. But their music is festooned with a colourful array of extra instrumentation — sweeps of eerie, vintage psychedelic synth, sprightly gypsyish trumpets, and even bagpipes for the mesmerizing “St. Andrew (This Battle Is In The Air).”

Jack seems to have regained his verve as well: he sounds assured and a little sad, and his quirky voice has a new depth and power. But he hasn’t lost his melancholy edge, singing of Mexican robberies, stream of consciousness love songs, the rag and bone man, and a man who loves a woman so deeply, he lets her go so he won’t make her unhappy.

And Meg gets to display her clear voice a few times — she gets to talk with Jack in “Rag & Bone,” and the eerie Scottishy ballad “St. Andrew (This Battle Is In The Air)” has her murmuring a prayerlike song over a bagpipe/drum melody. (”This battle is in the air/I’m looking upwards/where are the angels?/I’m not in my home!”).

This album isn’t the profound and unannounced classic that De Stijl is, but it’s solid White Stripes stuff–which is to say that it’s diverse, imaginative, entertaining on both sides of the speaker, and a foot-stomping good time.

Rock on.