Review: The Dead Weather - Horehound

When I heard that Jack White was rolling out a new album with a new posse, I got extremely excited, but then became very skeptical. You see, I am a big White Stripes fan, but was not too pleased with White's last project, The Raconteurs. However, after a bit of research, I started to come back around on the idea. With this new group, The Dead Weather, Jack White decided to keep just one Raconteur (Jack Lawrence, bass) and trade everyone else out for very interesting and personally exciting troupe consisting of vocalist Alison Mosshart (The Kills), guitar/keyboardist Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age), and White (The White Stripes... duh) himself taking up the drums/vocals.

What has me excited about this combination of artists, you may ask? Well, for starters, almost none of them share much in common stylistically, and secondly, they're quite good at what they do for the most part. So this made me think to myself: what could possibly happen when you take minimalist post-punk, alt-metal, and blues revival, put it in a studio, and tell Jack White to make an album of it? Well, as The Dead Weather's debut seems to indicate, you get some eerie bayou-blues that rocks as hard as Rage Against the Machine at times, and plays out like the back-track to the craziest acid-western that hasn't been made yet at others. Essentially, White has come back in a big way with The Dead Weather's Horehound.

I only say White because, upon hearing even the first few seconds of the first track, "60 Feet Tall," it is clear who is in control of the band. Even though he has chosen to take the backseat position of drummer, White's influence is an ever-present force to be reckoned with. But, before you stop reading Mr. Jack-White-hater, understand that this man has come a long way since the days of Elephant and Get Behind Me Satan. There is a fullness of instrumentation and variety of song styles that keep the album novel and well-paced that hasn't really been fully realized by either The White Stripes or The Raconteurs here, and the results are sexy.

The most notable tracks on the album that provide this new sense of novelty are the reggae-tinged "I Cut Like a Buffalo," the quirky instrumental "3 Birds," and the ruefully inquisitive "Will There Be Enough Water?" Where "I Cut Like a Buffalo" takes the traditional, swagger-y instrumentation of White and mashes it up with reggae and bizarre choking noises, "3 Birds" sounds like someone made a bet that they could make an eerie western track that was composed of a discordant guitar riff and Korn keyboard samples and make it sound good. And--perhaps oddest of all--"Will There Be Enough Water?" features a somber set of self-conscious questions ("Just because you caught me / Does that make it a sin?") over its bluesy as hell configuration. Given all of the pomp that usually goes into Jack White's songs, this track ends the album on a curious but impactful note.

Of course, there are plenty of tracks that are more "rockin'" in nature, but they are just slightly less interesting to talk about. "60 Feet Tall," as hinted at earlier, sounds very much like it could be a track off of a White Stripes album (as does "No Hassle Night"), while the Rage Against the Machine simile lends itself most closely to "Treat Me Like Your Mother," "Bone House," and--to a certain but much smaller extent--"Hang You from the Heavens."

This leaves us with perhaps some of my favorite tracks on the album: "Rocking Horse," "New Pony," and "So Far from Your Weapon." Why are they my favorites, you ask? I think it may because they are lyrically interesting songs that have little but no-frills goth-blues instrumentation to get in the way of the writing. The speaker of "Rocking Horse" sounds like the story of a foul, wretch of a man who doesn't seek any sort of redemption or pity when White sings "Baby, don't you bother / tastin' the water / an' baby, don't you bother comin' closer to me / When you see my eyes / they're half the size / and I'm not able to look at you." "New Pony," on the other hand, is an interesting Dylan cover, and I don't think much needs to be argued about the quality of his songwriting, but it should be noted that this song is also where Mosshart's vocals seem to be at their best. But, I gotta say that "So Far from Your Weapon" wins out over these two, as the song seems to be a lecture from the baddestassest of badasses set to a sauntering guitar oscillation and a chanting chorus that only swells when it seems attention is not being paid. "You want to get up? / Let go?" asks the speaker before booming "I say no!" Props again to Mosshart, as she penned this beauty all on her own, and--with the exception of the Dylan, of course--is the only song written by a single member.

So, there you have it. I was expecting to be disappointed as I was with The Raconteurs, but Jack White has really assembled quite an impressive cast that works well together for The Dead Weather, and Horehound is the proof.