The White Stripes Icky Thump: Throwback Album of The Week

Throwback Album of The Week is posted every Wednesday

    Today, in honor of the 10 year anniversary of Icky Thump as well as the impending delivery of my Third Man Records Vault Package 33, I am reviewing one of my favorite albums of all time, Icky Thump by The White Stripes. Icky Thump is the final studio album recorded by The White Stripes before their breakup in 2011 and was the first album I ever heard featuring Jack White. Icky Thump actually sits as a bit of an oddity in The White Stripes collection, featuring the loudest and most abrasive sound of any of their records. While each record by The White Stripes has it’s own variation on their core sound, Icky Thump took that sound and cranked it up to 11.

    The opening track by the same name as the album was an eye opener the first time I heard it; I didn’t know you could have a song with a guitar riff as the chorus. The heavy palm muted guitar on the verses perfectly mixes with Meg White’s drumming to create this track’s punk swagger and build up to the crescendo of the chorus. The demented keyboard scattered throughout and Jack’s rapid fire vocals create the perfect opening track.

    The next track is a favorite of mine because of the lyrics, where Jack mocks and offers advice to someone who doesn’t understand the difference between love and following commands. You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told) is one of the snarkier tracks on here as even though Jack is attempting to offer advice he can’t help but be annoyed by their lack of understanding. The instrumentation on here is classic White Stripes, a perfect mix of rock aesthetic firmly rooted in the Blues.

    Next we have 300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues, the mostly acoustic soft track of this album. Jack has an affinity for putting one of two of these on every album and this is a particularly strong one. Despite some very nonsensical lyrics the track conveys the feeling of disinterest and boredom that I think Jack was going for. The lyrics that aren’t seemingly just there cause they sound good or that are about Jack’s love of redheads seem to be conveying a sense of pointlessness.

    The last track I’m going to cover in depth is Conquest, one of the most interesting tracks on this album. While Jack has used similar styles before (I Think I Smell A Rat) he goes all out with the Mariachi style here, featuring a horn section to follow his vocals or guitar riffing. This track features some of the heaviest guitar sounds Jack has ever done, sounding like they would be at home on a metal album. The song about a Don Juan character who winds up falling for his conquest and being the prey to her marital ambitions works perfectly with the music video that features Jack literally becoming the prey in a bull fight.

    The rest of the album is similarly fantastic with highlights being the bagpipe driven tracks Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn and St. Andrew along with the spoken word track Rag & Bone. Aside from their first album, this is the only White Stripes album that I will routinely listen to all the way through rather than skipping around for my favorite tracks. The album is paced amazingly well, ebbing and flowing without ever losing any steam or hitting a dead spot. I highly recommend this to any rock fans and especially to anyone who likes similar acts like Arctic Monkeys, The Kills, Black Keys, Queens of The Stone Age or Royal Blood.

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ZZ Ward The Storm: An Album a Day

An Album a Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

    I first heard of ZZ Ward a few years back when her single Put The Gun Down was a fairly successful hit. In many ways how I saw her back then was about the same way I saw Elle King earlier this year; as a breath of fresh air. For the longest time there were no new rock stations around where I live, so I toggle back and forth between top 40 and the same 3 Journey songs being played on the classic rock station. Given how much I listened to pop music I found both ZZ Ward and Elle King’s blues based pop rock to be more than welcome. So today I’m looking at ZZ Ward’s new album The Storm, mostly to see how it matches up against Elle King’s Love Stuff.

    The first thing to note about the difference between the two is that while Elle King is a solid rhythm guitarist/banjo player she’s never the one playing lead on her tracks, leaving that up to her backing band. ZZ Ward’s thing is being more of a classic blues frontwoman so she plays lead guitar as well as occasional harmonica soloing. A track like Cannonball provides a good example of Ward’s soloing on a strong blues rock track that has just a hint of pop polish.

    The one issue I have with a lot of this album is though is that pop polish makes a lot of it too clean. Whereas Elle King puts forth this dirty and real persona in her music ZZ Ward plays it safe a lot of the time. Tracks like Ghost have a cool kind of darker feel because of the lyrics but some of the middle tracks on this one are very boring. Not to say that Elle King’s album was perfect, Love Stuff had some dull pop or country tracks as well.

    Don’t get me wrong, I do like this album and ZZ Ward, but her crossover appeal shows a bit more than King’s. With Elle King’s hits it always felt like it was a fluke that she got on pop radio but a lot of ZZ Ward’s songs have that clean pop sound on top of the blues based music. The strongest songs on this album include Ghost, Cannonball, Ride and Help Me Mama, all of which are strong blues rock tracks with folk and gospel elements.

    Overall this is a good album and ZZ Ward is certainly a talented singer and musician, but a lot of her music is a bit too clean and sterile sounding for my tastes. This is less a knock against her and more in praise of Elle King, but I would prefer to listen to Love Stuff. King just has a lot of the nastier elements that I love about blues based music, especially the fuzzed out guitars on Devil Don’t Go and Exs and Ohs. So yeah, solid album but not as good as Love Stuff.

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Uriah Heep Wizards and Demons: An Album A Day

An Album A Day is released 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

Today we are looking at the 197- album by heavy metal band Uriah Heep, Demons and Wizards. This band debuted only a few years after more well known early metal bands like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. This coupled with the band always having to compete with these other bands means that most people don’t usually mention Uriah Heep when talking about early metal bands. This makes Uriah Heep one of the most underrated classic metal bands of all time, and Demons and Wizards is considered by most to be their best album.

Stylistically, Uriah Heep sit somewhere between Zeppelin and Deep Purple, with a folk and hard rock sound dominated by huge organs and keyboards. That’s not to say that they don’t have their own sound, but they do share a lot of similarities with those two bands. Uriah Heep also have a lot of elements that predict future metal and rock stylings, such as the operatic vocals that would be common in power metal and arena rock. Some of the guitar solos on this album, particularly on The Spell, remind me of Avenged Sevenfold.

This album features Uriah Heep’s biggest hit, the song Easy Livin’ which fits nicely in with other classic rock music and artists. Easy Livin’ has all of the hallmarks of Uriah Heep’s sound, but it’s a bit shorter and less progressive than a lot of their other tracks, making it more digestible on a classic rock station. Other tracks off of this album of particular note are Rainbow Demon, All My Life and The Spell.

Rainbow Demon is a track that shows some of the progressive rock sound that Uriah Heep are known for. The track starts off with a plodding drum beat that calls to mind a church bell ringing with only organ and vocals accompanying the drums. The lyrical style either influenced or predicted bands like Dio and Iron Maiden with the same level of vaguely spiritual or mythical lyrics sang like an epic. The track closes out with an extended blues rock guitar solo and one execution of the chorus.

All My Life is an interesting track that sounds like Led Zeppelin for the first half before turning into hair metal meets gospel for the second half. The first half is a strongly blues based rock track with some folk elements, while the second half is taken over by organs and choirs that drive home a powerful gospel feeling. Lead singer David Byron shows of his upper range, hitting some ridiculously high notes during the songs crescendo.

The last track on this album The Spell is one of the strongest tracks on the album. Despite having a very upbeat piano riff leading most of the song, it deviates off into various interludes including a nearly 2 minute long guitar solo. The thing that I really like about these guys is even when they have the opportunity to go nuts and be overtly flashy they still use restraint and play tastefully so as to benefit the song. Rather than having different sections that go in a million directions with everyone showing off, the song has movements much like a classical piece.

While they may not be remembered as readily as other bands of their day, such as Sabbath or Zeppelin, Uriah Heep are a top notch early metal and prog act who absolutely deserve a listen. These guys are still making new music and touring to this day, albeit with a different lineup than during the classic years. It really is a shame that they don’t get more recognition, because if this album is any indication a lot of people don’t know what they’re missing.

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Elle King Love Stuff: An Album A Day

An Album A Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

     Here we have someone doing the neo-soul, blues rock thing who does something besides rip off Jack White or The Black Keys. In the same group as Kaleo and Hozier we have Elle King, the banjo slinging singer songwriter daughter of Rob Schneider. Her debut album Love Stuff is filled to the brim with powerful rockers, catchy hooks and some chilled out country ballads.

    The first thing I’ll praise this album for is the sheer number of good music on here that fits perfectly within the modern rock and pop scenes. The first two tracks on this album, Where The Devil Don’t Go and Ex’s and Oh’s got major radio play on pop and alternative stations despite both tracks being fuzz guitar driven rock songs. Despite the heavy rock elements found in these songs, King’s lyrics and vocal delivery are catchy enough to fit in perfectly on pop radio.   
    The album opens with four strong blues rock tracks filled with fuzzy guitars and raspy soul filled vocals. The next few tracks feature King singing country and folk inspired ballads while strumming the banjo with drums, piano and other production elements filling out the mix behind her. Track seven was the last single released from the album and is a country dance track that sounds like a mix between Avicii and acoustic Mumford and Sons.
    I Told You I Was Mean is a good anti love song in the same country soul vein as the rest of this section of the album. The next track, Ain’t Gonna Drown has a gothic folk sound that reminds me of Will There Be Enough Water by the Dead Weather. Despite the shift it doesn’t feel out of place as King’s poppiest tracks still have an edge to them that feels completely natural to her. The song Jackson takes a slight detour back into hard rock territory before wrapping up the album with two soft acoustic songs that show a more vulnerable side to King.
    Overall this album is strong, and although I would have preferred a few more rock tracks there is nothing wrong with the country leaning songs on the album. If I had one complaint it would be that the last two songs kind of go against the attitude that King has set up on the rest of the album, and I personally would have preferred more punk rock attitude to close out the album. While I was initially drawn in by the fuzz guitars on the early tracks, I stuck around for Elle King’s unique combination of powerful rasp and vocal sweetness.

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