WHITE STRIPES ALBUM CONFIRMED

The White Stripes are set to roar back into action, with a new album scheduled to hit the shops just in time for the summer festival season. The widely anticipated follow-up to the hugely successful Elephant, titled Get Behind Me Satan, will be released in Ireland on June 3rd. Already the first single from the album has been decided, with ‘Blue Orchid’ pencilled in for release on May 27. Whether the track has the anthemic quality of ‘Seven Nation Army’, which led the Elephant charge and ensured that it became a huge best seller, remains to be seen.

The band are already committed to gigs in the US during the summer, with the Music Meltdown Festival in Atlanta on June 10th coming just a week after the release of the album in Ireland. Other bands to feature on that bill include The Killers, The Features and The Pixies, as well as country music legend, Loretta Lynn. White Stripes have also been confirmed for the Glastonbury Festival, which takes place this year on June 24.

Prior to their US and UK appearances, the band will be doing some live shows in May, well off the normal rock 'n' roll path, including an opera house in the Amazon jungle – the Teatro Amazonas, in Manaus, Brazil (which some will recognize from Werner Herzog's 1982 film Fitzcarraldo). The initial trek will include dates in Mexico, Central America and South America.

"First we're going to play where we are not well known," a typically tongue-in-cheek Jack White told the LA Times recently. "Then, if we have time, we will play New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Frankly, we are waiting for technology to advance in the United States before we attempt to perform this record live there."

Meanwhile, the first new pics of the duo find Jack White looking remarkably like Captain Beefheart – but the colour scheme remains the same with only black, white and a searing primary red in evidence.

No Irish dates have yet been announced.