in this release, the white stripes touch base with a lot of genres without actually innovating anything. shuffle (rag & bone), gospel (i'm slowly turning into you), metal (little cream soda), blues (icky thump), folk (prickly thorn), hard rock (catch hell blues) are displayed, but in reality only show one color of the band; being referential and not unique. the highlights on this album include the warlike 'you don't know what love is', the beatlesque 'effect and cause', and the power ballad 'a martyr for my love for you'. unfortunately, the remainder of the album consists of novelty filler, pointlessness, and odes to queen and led zeppelin. in the end, all the whites stripes have a knack for is simplistic indie-pop and trying to sound like the royal trux, who, a decade before them, were more innovative, passionate, and competent than they could ever dream to be.