The first thing you should know about this collaboration between the
White Stripes’ Jack White, the Kills’ Alison Mosshart, the Raconteurs’
Jack Lawrence and Queens of the Stone Age’s Dean Fertita is that White
plays drums. The second thing you should know is that the drums are
louder than anything else on the album. It’s not surprising that White,
who produced Horehound and owns the Dead Weather’s label Third
Man, should position himself at the wheel of the project. What is
surprising is that despite White’s heavy hand, Horehound still
finds Mosshart breaking through as the band’s yowling vocalist. The
raw, underproduced tracks combine the aesthetics of blues, alt-country
and rock for an evocative, compelling effect. “Treat Me Like Your
Mother” is the album’s standout, with clanging cymbals and the bizarre
intersecting of Mosshart’s emotive shrieks and White’s understated
growl. The reverb-heavy “New Pony” re-imagines a lesser-known Bob Dylan
song as a harrowing, echoing number that makes you truly believe
Mosshart when she yelps, “Come over here, pony!” White may be the man
with the plan (and the songwriting talent on tunes like the hushed
closing duet “Will There Be Enough Water”), but it’s Mosshart you’re
really listening to — Emily Zemler
This article appears in Jul 15-21, 2009.
