The Dead Weather

Horehound (Third Man/Warner Bros.)

The Kills’ Alison Mosshart for Meg White is a trade not even the Knicks could botch. Meeting at a Southern crossroads between her stalking, electro convulsions and the post-millennium blues of drummer/guitarist Jack White, Horehound stirs an ambitious witch’s brew of heavy psych (“New Pony”), Western noir (“Rocking Horse”), and backwoods blues (“60 Feet Tall”). Atop a Strange Days organ groove from Queens of the Stone Age’s Dean Fertita, the couple duels for the lead during “I Cut Like a Buffalo,” then bleeds together in the confrontational “Treat Me Like Your Mother.” The gothic “Hang You From the Heavens” complements Mosshart like red on white. Written and recorded in three weeks, too much of Horehound unfortunately sounds like rough studio jams, particularly instrumental “3 Birds” and lackluster “No Hassle Night,” while “So Far From Your Weapon” is all bark and no bite. Let’s hope this is the Dead Weather’s calm before the storm. (6pm, LiveStrong stage.)

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This article appears in October 2 • 2009.

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