Booze-blues supergroup make a dirty, sexy debut: Horehound

Review by Heather Christie

Scrolling through the reviews of Horehound have been like reading dirty, sexy musical porn. Pitchfork has called the album “devil’s-music deviancy…stylized, sexually charged, and trashy,” while Rolling Stone has deemed it an “excellent album of sex sweat, bourbon breath, gun smoke and guitar sleaze.” And, true to what’s been said about it, Horehound is indeed 11 tracks of boozy, bluesy sex, straight from the heart of a thirsty, wooden, creole saloon.

Much of the hype surrounding Horehound has been due to the cataclysmic joining of forces between the violently creative and prolific Jack White—of the White Stripes and the Raconteurs–and the vocally fierce Alison Mosshart—of the Kills. Jack Lawrence, bassist from the Raconteurs, makes three and Dean Fertita, who plays the cat-gut-guit-box for Queens of the Stone Age, completes the mod quad.

Adding to the hype behind this dream team is the fact that the band has formed and pounded out a record over the course of a couple of jam seshes. But unlike what you’d expect from a band who have barely been together for a few months, the fruit of their labour is a cohesive, driven album, full of surging solos and Bonham-esque beats.

Highlights include the opening percussion-heavy track 60 Feet Tall that showcases Mosshart’s raging, cigarette-smoke-infused, Janis Joplin-esque pipes. Also of note is Horehound’s closer, Will There Be Enough Water? A slow-jammin’ duet between White and Mosshart complete with a bitchin’ lead thanks to Fertita. I Cut Like a Buffalo is also an interesting number, featuring some rock n’ reggae melodic stylings…though, curious is the lyric “I love you like a woman but I cut like a buffalo;” are those two attributes mutually exclusive? And how exactly to buffalos cut? A question for the ages, to be sure.

Anyway, despite reports that The Dead Weather’s recent show at the Kool Haus lacked the energetic onstage vibe of The White Stripes or the Kills, the band hasn’t had much chance to gel yet, and if Horehound is any indication, it can only get better from here.