Icky Thump raises big questions: Technically, can't a prostitute manage his or her own career?Will Jack and Meg ever check back into "Hotel Yorba"? Since checking out have either attempted the Ickey Shuffle? Or heard Icky Mettle or Icky Boyfriends? Maybe most important of all: Who'll risk a nasty phone call and make a joke about Jack's bygone "icky" mustache?
More essential than big questions, though, are big guitars (which, it should be noted, don't sound quite so large on the low-bit DJ Electra remix). Jack's six-stringer is what grabbed most folks early on and the candy-striped (or, well, mother-of-pearl bedecked) duo's sixth album, recorded in Nashville, is loose, shaggy guitar-centered fun. Favorite guitar moments include the crushing riffs and metal trills of "Little Cream Soda," "Effect And Cause"'s minimalist summertime blues, "Catch Hell Blues"' discordantly slippery swamp slide, the stoned childlike sing-a-long of "I'm Slowly Turning into You"'s outro, and that one pick-wielding Stereogummer's been playing the Dylan nodding, Beck loping "300mph Torrential Outpoor Blues" on his axe all week. Not to be outdone, Meg's drums have never smashed with such force or depth. Think about the 1999 self-titled debut with a gigantic sound: The Whites are creating their own two-strong seven-nation army leaving a trail of dirty leaves, dirty ground.
Themes of love lost, lost love, lost men, loss are joined by two counts of spoken word ("Meg, look at this place/Well, this place is like a mansion/It's like a mansion/Look at all this stuff"), sundry martyrs, graveyard/ruby shoes, various women folk (a six-foot 16 year old, a one-eyed redhead señorita, the aforementioned tangoing "Conquest" huntress) ? and, well, someone went and got a "Bone Broke." As you may have heard, a parade of instruments adds additional flesh to the country-infused, Zeppelin-bluesy, sweet home Southern-rocking garage: Crazy-fingered keyboard noodles zigzag across the title track, Regulo Aldama's trumpet ups the drama of the Mike Patton-style Morricone-style cover of Corky Robbins' "Conquest," etc.Today's personal highlight is the Bagpiping, kilt-wearing water-dance "Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn," especially how the pipes drone speedily with scissoring guitar noise into "St. Andrew (This Battle Is in the Air)," Meg's spoken prayer to St Andrew, Patron Saint of Scotland. Note: There's no Ray Charles piano in the house. Throughout, it's like the brimming, fire-stoning Jack's changed positions with Satan ... those kids from the "My Doorbell" video should be awfully scared.
So, yes, we enthusiastically dig -- um, just how catchy is "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told)"? -- but a question remains. Which ex-Simpsons characters ? M & J or Billy C and Co. ? will rule the airwaves this summer?
Icky Thump is out 6/19 in the US on Warner Bros.
