Remarkably, it manages to be insanely, impertinently derivative without irritating the listener. Listening to White Blood Cells feels like being hypnotised into joining a sinister religious cult for the 15-track duration. White Stripes formed in the late Nineties, but it was their third album, this year’s White Blood Cells, that got them noticed. Stare as hard as you like, baby – this time it really is all about the music. With White Stripes, it seems to be a case of: We’re different, nothing like you at all. White Stripes’s determined visual oddness sets them apart from the common herd maybe because it suggests that, uniquely for these times, they do not (will not?) exude any stale pop chumminess, any We’re-Just-Like-You-Guys bonhomie (the last refuge of the talentless pop scoundrel). Then there’s Meg, with her drums, bashing away intensely, all long, drippy pigtails and hillbilly stillness, like she might feel more at home spanking the banjo in an all-female remake of Deliverance. He resembles one of the lost smalltown teenagers who sat beside the dead body in River’s Edge. There’s Jack on vocals and guitar, twanging away hypnotically, all raven, mussed hair and screaming paleness. Dressed only in red, white, a touch of black, Jack and Meg Wade resemble something Andy Warhol and David Byrne might have dreamt up for an art happening. Watching their sweaty, intimate show at Brighton’s Concorde 2, it’s clear that, even in music-business terms, White Stripes are not your average twentysomethings. At one point, there was a hot rumour flying around that they were not siblings at all, rather a divorced couple, which makes you wonder what sort of children they might have had. The first thing to say about brother-sister Detroit duo White Stripes is that it has been some time since a band looked so defiantly, organically odd. Basing your answer closely on the extract, write the article (between 120–150 words). You are far less impressed by what you have seen and intend to say so in your review of the concert. (b) As a music critic for the local paper, you have watched the same performance as the writer of the original extract. (a) Comment on how the writer uses language to express her views and feelings in the extract. The passage below is a favourable review of an American group called White Stripes and appeared in a broadsheet newspaper.