The Dead Weather

The Dead Weather's collective CV reads like rock 'n' roll royalty.

Rating:

****

Verdict:

Supergroup starring the cool kids of rock 'n' roll deliver the goods.

Alison Mosshart of The Kills has a menacing and sexy presence as she spits, gnashes and swoons on the Dead Weather's debut album.

"I like to grab you by the hair and drag you to the devil," she hollers over the top of some sucking beats and fuzzed-out guitar riffs on Hang You From the Heavens.

She's got a perfectly powerful and raw voice to front a band made up of White Stripes and Raconteurs leader Jack White on drums, guitarist Dean Fertita from various bands, including Queens of the Stone Age, and bass player Jack Lawrence of the Raconteurs and the Greenhornes.

The Dead Weather performed for the first time in March, at the opening of White's new Nashville HQ for his record label, Third Man Records, and recorded this album in just a few weeks. So yes, it's a real little supergroup this one and it's fair to say Mosshart is the leader of the show considering she wrote (or co-wrote) eight of the 10 original tracks here.

While the influence of their other bands comes through - the minimal, squally freak-outs of the White Stripes and the reckless blues-rock of the Raconteurs most noticeable - Dead Weather has come up with something unique. It's unhinged, psychedelic freak rock made by four people with attitude who aren't scared to flaunt it.

This attitude wells up to a crescendo on the feverish Bone House, with its smashing beats, plucky electronics and Mosshart's strained yowl.

Apart from the questionable Rage-meets-Limp Bizkit rap 'n' roll of Treat Me Like Your Mother, it's a riveting album. Then again, even that song is catchy and fierce in its execution and an example of how you never know what's going to happen next.

There are improv-noise and free-jazz tendencies a la Sonic Youth on 60 Feet Tall and the creepy instrumental Birds; No Hassle Night starts with an eruption of instruments, as if it's about to set off on a death metal symphony, before lurching into a noisy dirge; and the haunting boy-girl duet of Rocking Horse is driven by some shimmering surf guitar.

The graunchy, shouty version of Bob Dylan's New Pony, off his 1978 album Street-Legal, is an obscure but inspired choice of cover with its Lucifer lyrics an apt accompaniment to the devilish sentiment across much of Horehound.

While it comes close to art rock, making it a little heavygoing and aloof at times, it never gives way to pretension because Horehound is a brazen celebration of the power of rock 'n' roll.

Reviewed by Scott Kara