Consumer Guide Album

The Dead Weather: Horehound [Third Man, 2009]
The Kills, Queens of the Stone Age, the Raconteurs, and the White Stripes are all staunchly schematic bands. They put their stamp on the simplistic and the emotive by formalizing them. Here, under the firm hand of Jack White, representatives from each let their ya-yas out, obscuring their minor deficiencies of songcraft in an expressionistic roil of sound. White's drums duke it out with Dean Fertita's guitar, mostly below the belt. Alison Mosshart doffs her s&m drag to suffer and yelp. Jack Lawrence plays bass. Fierce. A-