Walking With A Ghost + 4 Live Tracks

This five-track EP is clearly not intended to expand on Get Behind Me Satan, the Stripes' ambitious, ethos-stretching studio album that preceded it by a few months. Instead, the studio cover version and four recent live cuts culled together here seem equal parts roots-retrenchment and chronicle of Jack and Meg White's recent gig grooves. The title studio track (a cover of a standout from Canadian identical twin punk-pop duo Tegan and Sara's '04 "So Jealous" album) has been a fan favorite in recent Stripes set lists, and here Jack White invests it with a familiar, chunky-chorded foundation and equally solid vocal hooks, setting them off with evocative, just-this-side-of-Mars guitar breaks that pay tribute to Brit invasion heroes the Yardbirds. Hailing from June '05 Brazilian shows, the spare, stop/start "Screwdriver" finds Jack warbling in early Robert Plant mode, while his haunting acoustic take of White Blood Cells' "Same Boy I've Always Known" epitomizes much of the Stripes' stripped-down, back-to-the-future appeal. L.A. radio versions of Satan's gently infectious "As Ugly As I Seem" and the distortion-drenched "The Denial Twist" are forceful reminders that the Stripes' artistic bent may be minimalist, but its musical ambitions are anything but. --Jerry McCulley