According to most mainstream music mags, the White Stripes are the only hope for raw garage rock to survive. You certainly wouldn’t know that from Get Behind Me Satan. There isn’t much rockin’ to be had here, nor are there many real songs. Now, it would be perfectly acceptable for a band like the White Stripes to stretch out their stylistic boundaries at this point in their career, but not if all they can manage is this random assortment of half-finished ideas. And that’s the real problem at work here: Get Behind Me Satan sounds more like a first-draft demo than a cohesive album. Granted, there are some good moments such as “Red Rain” and the bluegrass-inflected “Little Ghost”, but sadly what could have been the best song on the record, “Passive Manipulation”, feels more like a sketch coming in at thirty-five seconds.

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