There was a time when side projects were usually nothing but exercises in vanity, but these days, it seems like you're not exerting your creative muscle to its full potential unless you've got two bands on the go. Or three, if you're Jack White. The White Stripes man must absolutely hate being idle; his dabblings with The Raconteurs have taken up most of his time over the past couple of years, yet he still finds time to form supergroup number two.
The Dead Weather sees White join forces with Alison Mosshart of The Kills, as well as enlisting the talents of Greenhornes/Raconteurs bassist Jack Lawrence, and Queens of the Stone Age/Brendan Benson guitarist Dean Fertita. White's insistence on playing drums means that he takes a back seat in every aspect; Mosshart provides the lion's share of vocals on 'Horehound', although it's perhaps to the album's detriment. While there's nothing particularly wrong with her sultry tone, tempering it with a more powerful alternative might have been prudent.
Otherwise, 'Horehound' sounds pretty much how you'd expect it to. It's a collection of loose garage rock with occasional inserts of fuzz and crackle, but not nearly enough ferocity. Bluesy opener '60 Feet Tall' embodies the same sort of sexy swagger as Yeah Yeah Yeahs, 'So Far From Your Weapon' relies on the call-and-response method to generate a dark ambience, 'I Cut Like a Buffalo''s reggae swing is either brilliant or bizarre (perhaps both), while the sinister, squealing instumental '3 Birds' is one of the best tracks here.
The problem is that there are no surprises whatsoever here - although the sheer awfulness of 'Treat Me Like Your Mother', a song that sounds like something Fred Durst came up with on the toilet, will raise eyebrows. 'Horehound' is a fence-sitter of a record: it's neither wonderful nor terrible, just very average.
