Fire & Sonic

So Sonic was disappointed by the debut album by The Dead Weather, Horehound. So I decided to check it out. I am a big White Stripes fan, unlike my sonic colleague I like The Raconteurs (more on that later) and I’m always up to like something that Sonic Rob doesn’t like so I checked The Dead Weather out via their YouTube channel.

I, too, am disappointed!! When I really thought about what the music was missing, I came to the conclusion that it lacks balls. Big brass balls, Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross balls, I’m Bjork and I’m a fucking Icelandic Viking Nutcase balls. Alison Mosshart is the vortex of that lacking. In another venue she could be awesome (this is my first exposure to her) but here Jack White just overwhelms her. The music behind her singing is complex and mighty and her voice just doesn’t stand up to it. It lacks depth of tone and just falls flat. She is not nearly insane enough to carry off the cross between Siouxsie and Ozzy that she is going for.

My overall impression is that this is some weird sort of not-quite-a-cover-band. They are making music like music that they really like.  They are copying styles and genres without really injecting anything meaningful in the process.They might as well be singing “la la la la la” for all the import of the their lyrics.

“Hang you from the Heavens” comes across as an attempt to sound like Aenima era Tool being fronted by the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls.

“Treat me Like Your Mother” is one of the Songs that Jack White wrote for his collaboration with Kid Rock.

All in all, this is a bunch of meaningless, ball-less pap from a group of artists who have already shown they can do better, tied up as an homage to beloved but ultimately dated musical styles of the past.

I’ve been trying desperately for the last month to like Horehound, the album by the Dead Weather. On paper, it sounds like a great lineup. I’ve been a huge fan of Alison Mosshart’s first band Discount since I was in college, and I was eventually brought around to her second band The Kills by a girlfriend who thought they were good sex music. I could take or leave Jack White’s Raconteurs, but the White Stripes are one of my go-to plays when musical satisfaction is required. Putting Mosshart and White together with a couple of guys from bands I don’t care about still should have resulted in a stripped-down sensual rock machine, something sinuous, decadent, and yet spare.

So how the hell did they wind up creating an acid rock/whitey funk band? (more…)