White Stripes Album Leaks, Fans Break Out Their Black and Red Finest

What’s new on the file-sharing networks this week.

The White Stripes, Icky Thump

Official release date: June 19

The Internet loves it!: “[This] is loose, shaggy, guitar-centered fun … So, yes, we enthusiastically dig [it] … Just how catchy is ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do What You’re Told)’?� [Stereogum]

The Internet REALLY loves it!: “Buy this album twice. The face of rock & roll has officially changed.� [The Music Nazi]

We think: Despite the fact that he’s not received a single word of negative critical feedback since his first guitar lesson, Jack White is still pretty angry, particularly for a guy who has a beautiful wife and a growing family, and who generally doesn’t need to worry about his shirt matching his pants. Icky Thump opens with the title track, a proggy rant about anti-immigrationists, and closes with “Effect and Cause,� a country number that would seem to definitively out White as a social conservative. Luckily, in between are a few of the rudest, most amplifier-melting blues explosions the band has ever committed to tape. The White Stripes: wrong on abortion, right on rocking. —Lane Brown