On Icky, the White Stripes pound out one of their heaviest — and most accessible — discs yet.  Full text...

An album that wipes the floor with anything that has borne the Oasis imprint for more than a decade – you wonder why he couldn’t have left sooner.  Full text...

Heavy riffage! Mariachi blues! Meg and Jack are back.  Full text...

The White Stripes are still thriving.  Full text...

Icky Thump, then, is a bit of a resurrection: Reuniting with Meg gives Jack the opportunity to slip back into sister-lover character, get his weird clothes out of attic, and return to basement blues. After the straightforward radio-rock trappings of the Raconteurs, Icky Thump packs an unexpected freshness, even given its back-to-basics premise; had it come immediately after Satan, it could have seemed like a cynical, regressive gift to the core fanbase, but following Broken Boy Soldiers, it recaptures a sense of goofy fun and a caustic edge that the duo haven't possessed since White Blood Cells launched them to the A-list.  Full text...

They are sturdy, virtually indestructible testaments. They are impressive, breathtaking at turns, and everlastingly present.  Full text...

Although The White Stripes still haven't made that Great American Album its supporters claim is in it, Icky Thump's a big leap toward it. The White Stripes seem to have digested the whole of 50 years of American music by now, and aren't afraid to look back. While that's nothing out of the ordinary, the duo's uncanny ability to dust off, re-imagine and make music history its own transforms Icky Thump from a mere traditionalist sit-down to rock-solid proof that blues is alive and kicking on this side of the millennium.  Full text...

Icky Thump should play well anywhere.   Full text...

The White Stripes are loud again, sure, with sharp and jagged guitar fills winding and twisting throughout the disc like abducted lightning, but this has nothing to do with the first two LPs.   Full text...

Jack hauled more than bagpipes to his garage to make Icky Thump, which is easily his loudest album - maybe he found a beat-up Marshall stack somewhere or a tube amp forgotten by history.  Full text...

This is by far The White Stripes’ most peculiar record, retaining with ease the enigmatic elements that made them so essential circa their breakthrough and before it. Despite the previous admission from Jack White that 2003’s LP Elephant would be their final record, Icky Thump sounds about as far away from a swansong as any record could be; it indicates, clearly, that White is still plenty full of ideas.  Full text...