The same may go for the band in general. Frankly, I hold out little hope for their next album. The songwriting on Is This It is strong, but one viewing of the band in a live setting makes you wonder whether the record is just another brief, exciting moment in media, like watching OJ being chased down the freeway. They're terrible. They have no presence, no joy, damn near no movement at all. Casablancas delivers the lyrics as if he's so bored with them that he has to lean on the microphone stand to keep from collapsing. Maybe he is — he's sure played the same 11 songs enough times, at countless uninspired gigs around the country, not to mention on Letterman and Saturday Night Live — two huge venues that artists ought to throw themselves into with reckless abandon, but for some reason never do.

Is This It is a good record, and certainly one of the most refreshing radio offerings from last year, filled with deep hooks, captivating lyrics, and a few moments of great flat-out abandon. They've got cock, they really do. But most of the time, they seem to have trouble getting it up.

Length: 7 / Girth: 4

The White Stripes
They're calling it "garage rock," and so it is. All the loose brilliance of, say, "Muddy Water" by The Standells is abundant in all of their albums. It's not so much rock and roll as it is proto-punk, recalling the days when bands didn't yet know it was okay to spew their bile out on record, but were toying with the idea in vague mockeries of pop melodies. This gives critics a boner bigger than any band here will ever give you. "Ohmigod!" they say. "This reminds me of when I was first getting into rock, reading Creem in the early 70's, smoking pot, sleeping with multiple partners, letting it all hang out! Wow!" And the younger critics say, "Ohmigod! This reminds me of all the things those older rock critics claim to have done that I never got to do because I was too busy listening to Pearl Jam! Wow!" I must admit, I am in the latter group, and I am taken with the noise that Jack White and sister/lover/ex-wife Meg are making.

True, the sound they make is old, and very familiar to anyone who has listened to a lot of 60's rock. They may even be guilty of taking a sound that long ago represented reckless abandon and turning it into a modern formula. History will decide. In the meantime, they do an excellent job of ignoring 20 years of music, and distilling the nastiest of what rock once was into a bloozy, hot, and sticky mess of a sound.

Length: 7 / Girth: 5.5