The news that the White Stripes broke up Wednesday really didn’t come as a shock to anyone. It had been four years since their last studio album and tour, but it still prompted an outpouring of social-media grief.
   
    The Stripes, of course, are a duo consisting of Jack and Meg White, once a married couple who carried on long after their divorce to make some of the best music of the last decade. They had been together for 13 years, released six acclaimed studio albums and put on consistently galvanizing live shows.

    The duo announced their break-up on the whitestripes.com Web site, saying they would make no more new recordings and no longer perform live. Fans hoping for a tipping-point motivation for the timing of this announcement were left hanging. There were no “artistic differences” or health problems, the duo wrote. “Mostly,” they said, they are breaking up now “to preserve what is beautiful and special about the band and have it stay that way.”

Rating: 2.5 stars (out of 4)

The White Stripes haven’t been heard from in nearly three years, so it’s disappointing to find that they’ve resurfaced merely to add yet another you-had-to-be-there document to the big pile of unremarkable live albums.

At times “Under Great White Northern Lights” (Warner Bros.) feels like a career capper, a de-facto greatest hits, even though it’s raw even by the duo’s famously low-fi standards. This is the White Stripes in distortion-saturated overdrive, and that’s not a bad thing. If there are post-show overdubs, they’re inaudible. The crowd noise is amped up, and White’s voice cracks, verging on hysteria. He throws himself into every song like the deranged ax-murderer he plays on stage. Meg remains a reliably game foil for her partner, accenting his every flourish. 

But right down to the tongue-in-cheek stage patter (“My name’s Jack White and this is my big sister Meg White on the drums!”) there’s nothing here that White Stripes’ fans haven’t heard before; even the covers (Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” Burt Bacharach's “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself”) are longtime concert staples. It’s good to have the White Stripes back in some form, but here’s hoping this is merely a place-holder until the duo’s next studio album rather than a farewell.

greg@gregkot.com

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