Available at Amazon.com!

Roll up! Roll up! The Time is nigh! The one you've all been waiting for kids! The new White Stripes album! The brother & sister duo? The husband and wife duo? Are they married? Divorced? Will this beat White Blood Cells?! And ooh, look at their stylin' clothes! Seriously, all kidding aside, the media circus that surrounds this band sometimes makes you want to overlook their greatness. The greatness of the blues/punk debut, the introspective De Stijl, the blues-metal mojo White Blood Cells, and yes, now the moody Elephant.

This album is, without a doubt, their masterpiece. The sum of all the hard work through the years snubbed from them by The Strokes. It's moody, rockin', introspective, and downright mature for garage rock. And yes, it still is garage rock. Elephant is the album that will divide the casual fan from the disciples. The mainstream from the indie fans if you will. Because Elephant, like the so-called garage rock scene, is really only for the elite. The record collectors who know what a guitar hook, bass line, or vocal stylings refer to whom, or what. How many teeny boppers, for instance, know who the hell Blind Willie McTell or Son House is (Ok, so I did at 17, but hey, we aren't all that weird.) or why "Fell In Love With A Girl" sounds like the Kinks? But most importantly they will for a fact never understand why the slide guitar on "Ball and Biscuit" bring blues/blues-rock fans like me utter joy. The garage rock scene is so self-contained and referential that it may actually stay underground pretty much and thank god. Elephant only sets this in concrete by being closer to the blues in content and execution than, say, White Blood Cells. Don't get me wrong, there is still plenty of the old sound left. "Black Math" is still a classic Jack White rebel-rouser, and "Hypnotize" will keep the kids dancin' but pure folk/blues like "In The Cold, Cold Night" (Meg's excellent vocal debut) will only give a hard-on to me and some fans of Memphis Minnie. "Seven Nation Army" sets the stage for the blistering blues that is unleashed on Elephant. It starts with a solitary bass line (--gasp, a bass? In fact, an octave pedal effect) and the lyrics "I'm Gonna fight 'em off/ A seven nation army couldn't hold me back" and then explodes into Elmore James electric slide fury. Jack White is finally my new hero as he has now invented gospel blues rock with "There's No Home For You Here". A church choir chorus of " there's no home for you here girl, go away" starts off with excellent slide guitar which turns into distorted overload on the second chorus, and by the third, back into gospel territory. The album's closer "Well, It's True That We Love One Another" is the real gem. I'm sure very few will get it but it is, without a doubt, a tribute to the old hokum blues of Blind Willie McTell where McTell would sing a question and would be answered by a flapperesque female. Unlike White Blood Cells, it doesn't strive for the mainstream and yet it isn't trying to prove itself to the indie world like De Stijl.

It simply is what it is and nothing more. This is the album that will divide the fans. Maybe if nothing else it will turn on the uninitiated to the blues. If not, it doesn't matter, because the Stripes have made their masterpiece. If this is the last thing that they ever do, it wouldn't matter. It's that good. But for our sake..no!.. for the Blues' sake, let's hope they have much more in store.

And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead: The Secret Of Elena's Tomb E.P. Available at Amazon.com!

Austin, Texas's Trail Of Dead released the best album of last year Source Tags & Codes. Following that up is hard to do. So instead of rushing into another album they have decided to release an EP. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to be said for EPs. Autechre, Guided By Voices, and Pavement have all released great EPs in their time and Jar Of Flies was arguably Alice In Chains' greatest work. But the one thing that is more annoying than anything is when a band releases an EP of all filler just to keep in the media circus. Trail Of Dead have done that. Sure there're good tracks, like "Mach Schau" with its gentle guitar haze turned into a punk workout and "Crowning Of A Heart", a gentle Yo La Tengo pop tune, but with only 5 tracks that doesn't cut it. "All St. Day", for starters, sounds uncomfortably too much like a Sonic Youth cover for anybody's liking. The last song "Intelligence" is basically a throwaway track as it already appeared on a British-only single for "Relative Ways". Besides, who wants to hear Trail Of Dead doing techno. It sounds like The Faint fronted by Ian MacKaye. As for "Counting Off The Days" I can only hope that it is a joke, a sly satire of Dashboard Confessional, because if not then I don't want to ever hear anything new by this band ever. So we can only pray that this is not the direction their future albums will take because really who needs bad Emo and Sonic Youth covers?