THE DEAD WEATHER
Horehound

Jack White’s latest band, the Dead Weather, features vocalist Alison Mosshart (the Kills), bassist Jack Lawrence (the Raconteurs), guitarist Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age), and White on drums. The quartet’s debut release, Horehound, is a balls-out affair replete with super-nasty, over-the-top guitars, fat and fuzzy bass lines, mammoth drums, and stark but soulful vocals—all pressed into the service of hooky, hard-driving, and sometimes smoldering grooves. Guitar solos are few, but killer guitar tones come fast and furiously. Recorded at White’s Third Man Studio, the production aesthetic is simultaneously rough and refined, in a sort of neo-post-retro style, with enough reverb to give Joe Meek pause. In a word: kickass! Third Man.

—Barry Cleveland