Review Summary: Sailing away from the mainstream atop a tidal wave of screaming guitars and swooshing synth
You'd be excused if you said this is the first time you'd heard of The Dead Weather. Their first contribution “Horehound” was released a mere ten months ago, through Jack White's own "Third Man Records". Tours initially took place in a series of low key venues and led to a practically unpublicised tour of Northern Europe, often leading to fortunate fans finding the band's name on a chalk board outside a venue. Partly the process of testing the waters with new material but also a deep desire to keep the live experience "real", which undoubtedly feedbacks upon the energy of their music. This back to basics romanticism is a reoccurring dreamscape in the Jack White compendium and you can feel the love that goes into contemporising long forgotten atmospheres and melodies.
"The Dead Weather" is much more than Jack White, who in emphasis takes place primarily as drummer in the band. Allison Mosshart (The Kills) takes the centre stage as vocalist, Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age) takes control of the guitar/organ/synth while Jack Lawrence (The Greenhornes) pounds out some mean bass lines. The musicians are clearly comfortable in their collaboration and not in the way that most "supergroups" would be labelled. Their music is genuinely creative, having to answer to no expectation from previous fans or direction from some overarching label management. The immediacy of a second album "Sea of Cowards", due the 11th May, is only testament to this uncapped, over-bubbling creativity.
"Sea of Cowards" dives us back into the dirty, blues inspired grind, infecting us with seductive big beats and a roots sound that won’t let you go. “Blue Blood Blues” more than adequately sets the table for the album, in which pounding drums and echoing vocal dissonance thrust us into an atmosphere of violent guitar riffs and broody lyrical temperaments. By comparison to “Horehound” there is somewhat more instrumentation, which helps broaden the sonic scope of the album as a whole. “The Difference Between Us” whirrs into life with the band’s first coherent use of a synthesiser leading us into a pivotally vocal track with a frantic instrumental breakdown midway through. Also “I’m Mad” -even though it wouldn’t be out of place in any of “The Kills” albums- peaks to an almighty synth solo that really energises the album.
“Die by the Drop” will be familiar to a few as the first single from “Sea of Cowards” and has the most commercial appeal with both Mosshart and White performing vocals. Yet, it is with “Gasoline” that the album gets its busiest, as a platform for a signature Jack White solo, with a characteristically tuneful/toneless (much is the debate) quality. Essentially, “Gasoline” marks the zenith of the album, with much of the momentum gathered by the tenacity of the previous tracks being consumed by the remaining and notably brief tracks, the album quickly winds down with “Jawbreaker” and the ever bewildering “Old Mary”. The latter is somewhat of a curiosity, a sardonic parody of the catholic prayer. Rhythmic vocals are mixed with crudely interwoven background sounds stretching from unplugged guitars to the laughs of children. It’s with this touch of “Lord Buckley” that the disparity of musical influences stand out. It is difficult to place a common ancestry to much of the material on the album, which seems to reinforce the originality of “The Dead Weather” project.
As an album “Sea of Cowards” continues to indulge in the individual style cultivated between the members in their first album. A considerably more organic album than the first, it feels that there is a lot more to explore in their ongoing intensity as a band. And even though the second half of “Sea of Cowards is a little lacking in the vim of the first half, in a time when many financially comfortable artists are playing it safe with commercial releases this album serves as a welcome treat for those looking for something brilliant in its simplicity.
