The strips are beast, Elephant is an excellent album. I don't really know why the question "Are the White Stripes metal" even needs to be asked to be honest, I don't think I've seen one single element of any song that has made me think that they could be metal. That said, I haven't listened to their earlier stuff or their later stuff, just Elephant and White Blood Cells.
They are quite quirky, though. Song like "This Protector," "In the Cold Cold Night," "I think I smell a Rat," as examples are all very different, and I'd be tempted to place them in the Alternative genre rather than the Rock genre based on those songs alone. Very interesting band, at least
