White Stripes: "Get behind me Satan "

Jack e Meg White sanno bene che non si ripeterà più la memorabile congiunzione astrale della volta scorsa, quando il loro quarto album venne salutato quasi unanimemente come un grande disco nel cuore della scena '00. Così questa volta deviano il colpo, evitano il confronto diretto, tengono un profilo sfuggente; a cominciare da titolo e copertina, dove evocano fervori religiosi e si travestono da musicisti d'altri tempi lasciando immaginare qualcosa che poi non accade. Riccardo Bertoncelli - DelRock.it

Sembrerebbe quindi che Get behind me Satan sia in realtà un formidabile esercizio di rinnovamento della band formata da Jack White e da quella che per molto tempo è stata presentata come la sorella Meg. Ad ogni modo sono la marimba e il piano che ornano i nuovi titoli di Get Behind Me Satan, sempre molto minimalisti ma nettamente meno brutali dei loro predecessori. Forever For Her ad esempio sembra un pezzo degli Stones alla fine degli anni ’60 ma senza Keith Richards. Little Ghost con le sue chitarre acustiche assomiglia invecead una vecchia canzone country registrata negli anni ’40.
Maurizio Amore - Videomusica

But even with this reconfigured instrumentation, the Stripes can't resist finding new ways to place unnecessary constrictions onto their work, as evidenced by the fact that Get Behind Me Satan was written, recorded, and released at an extreme breakneck pace. As legend has it, none of these tracks were even fully written before the band entered Third Man Studios in March, and unfortunately, several songs bear the scars of their needlessly rushed delivery. Although raw, combustible immediacy has always been a part of the White Stripes' charm, at some point Jack's desire for spontaneity could resemble sheer cussed laziness, and here the duo have granted a discouraging amount of real estate to what feel like unfinished sketches or works-in-progress. Jack has cryptically described these songs as an exploration of "characters and the ideal of truth," which apparently can be translated to despair-- and lots of it. There's none of the sunny, innocent optimism of "Apple Blossom" or "We're Going to Be Friends" to leaven Satan's mood; virtually every track drips with loneliness, alienation, and betrayal. Even the album's most outwardly playful song, the bluegrass-tinged "Little Ghost", features a narrator so desperate in his isolation that he falls in love with an apparition. ("When I held you I was really holding air."). Matthew Murphy - Pitchforkmedia.com


Bad news for satan: Jack White's mama said knock you out. Get Behind Me Satan is a Biblical reference, plus a possible invitation to back-door action with the Prince of Darkness. But the music is so wild, it could make you weep over how pitilessly the Stripes keep crushing the other bands out there. Having clocked all rivals, the Stripes have to settle for topping their 2003 masterpiece, Elephant, the way Elephant topped White Blood Cells. If you happen to be a rock band, and you don't happen to be either of the White Stripes, it so sucks to be you right now. - Rob Sheffiled - Rolling Stone

Instead of change, Get Behind Me Satan trumpets a raw, back-to-basics approach, an announcement that strikes a ominous note. The White Stripes declaring that their new album is a raw, back-to-basics record is a bit like Abi Titmuss declaring that she's going to take her bra off. It's hard to react with much more than a shrug: you do it all the time anyway, what are you making such a fuss about?Get Behind Me Satan was cut in a fortnight, with no songs completed before the duo entered the studio. The first single, Blue Orchid, was available on iTunes within two weeks of the band vacating the recording studio. There's something bracing about their willingness to fly in the face of conventional 21st-century record company wisdom, in which nothing gets released without months of focus groups and strategic marketing plans, and occasionally the results imply that the old line about necessity being the mother of invention still rings true.
Alexis Petridis - The Guardian

Parola di Bielle (Cosimo Pacciani)
Per fortuna, i White Stripes regolano il conto e fanno carte quaranta per dirci che in fondo this is only a bloody carnival of souls. Un sano rock n'roll, un disco incendiario e consapevolmente retro'. Rosso e nero, leggermente inquietante. La forza di mille mostri lovecraftiani, la forza bruta degli elementi naturali che stavolta trovano un pianoforte da torturare. Ed un vago senso di malessere tropicale, una milonga od una salsa come la potrebbe suonare un bluesman dei quartieri neri di Detroit.

http://www.whitestripes.com/