How is it that The Dead Weather has come to be regarded as “Jack White's new project?” Granted, there's no arguing that White is an important element in the band (he gets co-writing credit on seven of Horehound's eleven songs) but he is the drummer in The Dead Weather – a position that seldom if ever affords the sole creative custody of a band. Did anyone refer to Eyes Adrift as “Bud Gough's new band” in 2002? Does anyone other than perhaps the most rabid of percussion enthusiasts qualify Rush as “Neil Peart's band?" Did a single soul (other than maybe his mother) ever imply that The Beatles were Ringo Starr's band? No, because while a band doesn't have any power at all without good percussion, those that make the beats are usually the backbone – not the mouth – of a group. Beyond that too, calling The Dead Weather anything other than an all-star band would be doing Alison Mosshart (whose day-job is as singer for The Kills), Jack Lawrence (of The Raconteurs) and Dean Fertita (from Queens Of The Stone Age) a remarkable disservice; while White's star may shine brightest at the moment, there are no dim bulbs here and, as is evidenced right away on Horehound, everyone pulls his or her own weight.
Semantics aside, the raw energy of Horehound's eleven tracks is difficult to argue against. True to their name, Dead Weather blows in like a force of nature as “60 Feet Tall” sets a grainy, eerie and epic tone for the proceedings. On Horehound, The Dead Weather conjure dark, twisted and sinister vibes with all of the methodical energy they have at their disposal with Mosshart strapped to the front-end riding waves of keyboards (“There's a bullet in my pocket burnin' a hole” as a sample from “So Far Form Your Weapon”), stomping drums and incendiary guitars. The effect is remarkable – like the hellfire rush that might come from Cristina Martinez if she co-wrote with Jon Spencer (instead of just having him play along as he does in Boss Hog) – as demons, dust bowls, floods and fury converge to produce a tempestuous amalgam that doesn't rely on any one bandmember's established strengths. Instead, Horehound pretends as if the band appeared from nowhere; Mosshart sighs seductively while Fertita plays like a flood down in Texas and White punctuates the earth-rumbling concussive caresses that Lawrence lays down. It's an epic and risky transition for four established and celebrated musicians to make.
The risk pays off though. While Horehound does bow to a couple of classic side project conventions (there is a cover of a classic Bob Dylan song here, and all of the songs are a little longer, moodier, more textural and jammy than that of any of the members' main bands), the album as a whole marks a complete and unrepentant departure of everyone involved and has the added benefit of being a pretty incredible beast in its own right; it is the songs that light up the album, not the star power. Even if Horehound turns out to be a one-off goof, the assembled members carry it off marvelously and the record adds another dimension to the perceived abilities and strengths of everyone involved.
Artist:
Dead Weather online
Dead Weather myspace
Download:
“Treat Me Like Your Mother” from Horehound by The Dead Weather.
Album:
Horehound is out now and available here on Amazon .
